The Amazing History of Element Names 9782759824649, 9782759824977

Citation preview

Pierre Avenas

The amazing

with the collaboration of Minh-Thu Dinh-Audouin Preface by Professor Jacques Livage

history element names of

Pierre Avenas with the collaboration of Minh-Thu Dinh-Audouin Preface by Professor Jacques Livage

The amazing history of

element names

translated from La prodigieuse histoire du nom des éléments with the collaboration of Alan Rodney

By the same author On polymers: • Mise en forme des polymères. Approche thermomécanique de la plasturgie, with J.-F. Agassant, J-Ph. Sergent, B. Vergnes and M. Vincent, Lavoisier, 4th ed. 2014 (1st ed.1982), preface by Pierre-Gilles De Gennes. • Polymer processing. Principles and modeling, with J.-F.  Agassant, P.-J.  Carreau, B. Vergnes and M. Vincent, Hanser Publishers, 2nd ed. 2017 (1st ed. 1991). • Etymology of main polysaccharide names, Chap. 2 of The European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (EPNOE), Research initiatives and results, P. Navard (ed.), Springer, 2012. Etymology books: With Henriette Walter, published by Robert-Laffont:

• L’étonnante histoire des noms des mammifères. De la musaraigne étrusque à la baleine bleue, 2nd ed. 2018 (1st ed. 2003), republished in 2 vol., « Le goût des mots », Points: Chihuahua, zébu et Cie, 2007, and Bonobo, gazelle et Cie, 2008. • La mystérieuse histoire du nom des oiseaux. Du minuscule roitelet à l’albatros géant, 2007. • La fabuleuse histoire du nom des poissons. Du tout petit poisson-clown au très grand requin blanc, 2011. • La majestueuse histoire du nom des arbres. Du modeste noisetier au séquoia géant, 2017. With the collaboration of Minh-Thu Dinh-Audouin, published by EDP Sciences/SCF:

• La prodigieuse histoire du nom des éléments, 2018.

Design and layout: CB Defretin, Lisieux Infography: Minh-Thu Dinh-Audouin Printed in France ISBN (print): 978-2-7598-2464-9 ISBN (ebook): 978-2-7598-2497-7 "La prodigieuse histoire du nom des éléments" was originally published in French in 2018 by EDP Sciences. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broad-casting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in data bank. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is only permitted under the provisions of the French Copyright law of March 11, 1957. Violations fall under the prosecution act of the French Copyright law.

© EDP Sciences, 2020

Ce n’est point en resserrant la sphère de la nature et en la renfermant dans un cercle étroit qu’on pourra la connaître ; ce n’est point en la faisant agir par des vues particulières qu’on saura la juger ni qu’on pourra la deviner ; ce n’est point en lui prêtant nos idées qu’on approfondira les desseins de son auteur. Au lieu de resserrer les limites de sa puissance, il faudra les reculer, les étendre jusque dans l’immensité ; il ne faut rien voir d’impossible, s’attendre à tout, et supposer que tout ce qui peut être, est. Buffon, Histoire naturelle It is not by tightening the sphere of nature and enclosing it in a narrow circle that we will be able to know it; it is not by making it act by particular views that we will be able to judge it nor guess it; it is not by lending it our own ideas that we will be able to deepen the designs of its author. Instead of tightening the limits of its power, we must push them back, extending them into the immensity; we must not see anything as impossible, we must expect everything, and suppose that everything that can be, is. Buffon, Histoire naturelle

III

Chapter – Preface

Preface THE AMAZING HISTORY OF ELEMENT NAMES Year 2019 was declared as the International Year of the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements by UNESCO. It was indeed 150 years ago that Mendeleev published his famous Periodic Table bringing together the 63 chemical elements already known at that time. The 118 elements known today perfectly fit together, including the empty spaces left by Mendeleev. It was therefore useful to recall the history of this table and the origin of the names of the chemical elements. This is what Pierre Avenas has done, already well-known for the etymological articles he published in L’Actualité Chimique, the journal of the French Chemical Society. A priori, such an opus could have been a simple enumeration of the elements classified according to their alphabetical order or by the date of their discovery. But actually this book, based as it is on the etymological origin of the names, takes us through a real odyssey of mineral, living and even thinking matter. He shows us how the whole history of Humanity lies behind the simple denomination of the chemical elements, from the four elements of Empedocles to the recently discovered radioactive elements. Moreover, the term element does not apply only to the atoms of the Periodic Table. It also applies to the molecules that build living matter. The names of the chemical elements come from very diverse origins. They most often do not come from the simple field of chemistry and are inspired by other scientific or cultural fields. The Periodic Table of elements reveals Mendeleev’s genius. It is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful manifestations of the human spirit. At that time, only 63 elements were known, characterized by their mass and chemical properties. Atoms, each with its nucleus and electronic layers, had not yet been discovered by Niels Bohr. How was it then possible to classify the known chemical elements, leaving empty spaces for those which would be discovered later? IV

The amazing history of element names

The book naturally starts with the four elements suggested by Empedocles (fire, air, water and earth) on which the description of matter was based until the 18th century. It reminds us of the basic role of metals in the history of mankind, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age! The book then takes us to other horizons, such as mythology, history or geography. It shows us which people, beliefs or circumstances inspired the name of each element. We thus cover the entire history of mankind, from the pigments used in parietal wall paintings to very recently discovered radioactive elements. The elements, which in fact constitute all the living and inanimate matter of the Universe, play a basic role in our history. Far beyond simple chemistry, Pierre Avenas opens up a vast horizon in which sciences, history and humanities are closely intertwined. Jacques Livage

Professor at the Collège de France Member of the French Académie des Sciences

V

Chapter – Foreword

Foreword THE AMAZING HISTORY OF ELEMENT NAMES Year 2019 was proclaimed by UNESCO the “International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements”. This theme is more familiar than it sounds in scientific terms, since we use the names of chemical elements every day, such as the oxygen we breathe or the helium we use to inflate balloons. Gold and silver are also chemical elements, as are copper or iron and numerous other metals. Some elements are known to be beneficial to health, such as phosphorus for the brain functions, fluorine for our teeth, sulphur for our hair... and others are known as trace elements, such as iodine or selenium. And everyone knows that table salt is sodium chloride, where two elements, chlorine and sodium, combine. Finally, let’s mention the field of energy, where we are constantly talking about carbon, but also photovoltaic silicon and uranium as used in nuclear power plants. We can see that a great many chemical elements are no strangers to us. Today, 118 of them have been identified, 90 of which are natural on Earth, where they make up the totality of matter, i.e., including the mineral or living kingdoms. The elements combine in the countless substances and compounds that surround us, many of which are part of daily life.

z An approach based on etymology... This book is a collection of articles, known as “clins d’œil étymologiques” (“etymological winks”), published since 2012 in L’Actualité Chimique, a journal of the Société Chimique de France (SCF1), French Chemical Society. The basic, underlying idea is to present the etymological 1. www.societechimiquedefrance.fr VI

The amazing history of element names

origin of the names of substances, whether they be chemical elements or compounds such as starch, brass or plexiglas. But that’s not all, the aim of the book goes far beyond that.

z ... and that leads to worlds that are sometimes unsuspected Indeed, the etymology of a name often tells us a great deal about the discovery of the substance evoked, about the research scientists involved, and even about the state of science at the time of discovery. A whole history that quickly led us on to other scientific or cultural fields such as botany and zoology, astronomy, history and mythology, medicine and biology, technology and industry... Names that make people travel, if only because they are given in English, French and often in Spanish and German. Both the chapter titles and the illustrations give free rein to the reader’s imagination. But the aim of the book is also to make the Periodic Table more familiar, as highlighted in the theme of the year 2019.

z From the list of elements to the Periodic Table In 1789, Lavoisier established the concept of the chemical element and his Traité élémentaire de chimie listed 23 elements known at that time. Later on, other elements were discovered, classified by mass from the lightest, hydrogen, to the heaviest, uranium. And, taking into account their properties, they were arranged in a table with several columns. And it was a graduate from the French engineering school École Polytechnique, Alexandre de Chancourtois (1820-1886), who was the first to introduce periodicity in this classification, in 1862, in the original form of a helix traced on a cylinder, the so-called Telluric screw still visible at the École des Mines de Paris. Then, in the following few years, other researchers, a priori independently of each other, presented this periodicity in a double-entry table. This was notably the case in Germany by Lothar Meyer and in Russia by Dmitri Mendeleev, who first used this table as a predictive tool. VII

Foreword

z Mendeleev’s table, which is certainly periodic and above all predictive Mendeleev (1834-1907), professor of chemistry at the Institute of Technology and at the University of St. Petersburg, Russia, marked the history of chemistry with his publication in 18692, not so much by the concept of periodicity of the elements, already well understood by others, but above all by predicting the subsequent discovery of missing elements in slots that remained empty in his table of the 63 elements known at that time. He also predicted certain properties of these future elements, several of which were actually discovered during his lifetime, which caused a real sensation. These historical elements can be found in The amazing history of element names and many other references to the Periodic Table, the construction of which can be followed throughout the book. But for the Ancient scholars, the elements were fire, air, water and earth, offering an excellent place to start Chapter 1.

2.  E. Scerri, Le tableau périodique, Son histoire et sa signification, EDP Sciences, Paris, 2011, 349 pp, p. 64 (1st ed. The Periodic Table, its story and its significance, Oxford, 2006). VIII

To make the reading easier z Typographical conventions in italics

the word itself

«

»

the meaning of the word

<

>

graphical form

[ ]

pronunciation

*(in front of a word)

reconstructed form, non-attested in writing

With a few exceptions, Greek words are transliterated according to the usual standards: α→a β→b η→ê θ → th φ → ph ψ → ps ω→ô χ → kh (becomes pronounced [k], in Latin and in English, French…), υ → u (becomes in Latin and in English, French…) Example : Greek ἐτυμολογια → etumologia > Latin etymologia > English etymology Words written in specific alphabets (Cyrillic, Arabic...) are also transliterated

z Some keywords – Indo-European: refers to a reconstructed language, believed to have been spoken 5 000 years before our era in a region near the Black Sea, and from which the languages of the so-called Indo-European family originate, consisting mainly of Sanskrit, Asian languages (Persian, Hindi...), and most European languages: Greek, Latin and the Romance languages from which they come (Italian, Spanish, French...), Slavic languages (Russian...), Germanic languages (English, German...), Celtic languages (Breton...)...

IX

To make the reading easier

– atom: from the Greek atomos, ‘indivisible’, already describing an indivisible particle in Democritus or Aristotle. It was around 1900 that the structure of the atom was understood: a positive nucleus surrounded by negative electrons. Since then, as in this book, we can say chemical elements as well as atoms. – ion: an atom that has either captured one or more electrons (viz., an anion, negative) or has lost one or more electrons (viz., a cation, positive). First coined by the English physicist Faraday in 1834, this word comes from the Greek ion, a present participle of the verb “to go”, therefore “going, that goes”, either towards the anode (the + pole), or towards the cathode (the - pole). – isotope: from the Greek iso, “the same”, and topos, “place”, created in 1913 by the English physicist Soddy to designate atoms in the same slot of the Periodic Table, i.e., sharing the same atomic number (same number of electrons) but different masses. Example: for carbon (atomic number 6) we know carbon 14, which is a radioactive isotope, whereas the most common isotope, carbon 12, is not.

z IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry is a non-governmental organization based in Zurich. Founded in 1919, it is interested in the progress of chemistry, physical chemistry, biochemistry, etc. Its members are n ational chemical societies. It is IUPAC that validates the chemical nomenclature, including the names of chemical elements (or atoms), their chemical symbols, isotopes, etc. Example: IUPAC recently (June 8, 2016) validated the name of the latest element identified to date, oganesson (Og), atomic number 118. Depending upon the context, the same molecule can be represented by different sorts of formulae or drawings. Example of propane: C3H8 H

H

H

H

C

C

C

H

H

H

H

CH3CH2CH3

CH3-CH2-CH3

H H H C C C H H H H

H2 C

H

X

H3C

CH3

Explorers of the elements

Summary 1  Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we see how Lavoisier ushered in modern chemistry

1

2  A chance for artists and craftsmen…. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we recall that the Ancients knew 7 metals...

21

3  Gods, myths and legends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we plunge in mythology and astronomy

49

4  Travels with words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we find city, country and even continent names

85

5  Tastes, colours and smells in names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Where we perceive the word in all its senses 6  Explorers of the elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Where we see how they named their discoveries 7  In the intimacy of plants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Where botany is a source of inspiration 8  Animal stories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Where zoology meets chemistry 9  What everyday product names tell us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Where we discover the history of common, household names

The epilogue to end all epilogues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

245

Table of contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

252

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

254

XI



CHAPTER

Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

1

Where we see how Lavoisier ushered in modern chemistry LES ÉLÉMENTS DES ANCIENS 1 Earth, a precious diamond mine!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 Air and water, elements of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3 A quest that leads to fire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

4 The 5th element… towards the quintessence!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

ELEMENTS OF THE ANCIENTS AND ALCHEMISTS Ancient Greek philosophers first thought that one element lay at the origin of everything, fire for some, water for others, until Empedocles, in the 5th century BC, asserted the existence of four primitive elements: fire, air, water and earth, not the Earth our planet, nor earth in which plants grow, but earth in the sense of all solid matter, considered as one single element. The description of Empedocles, born in the Greek city of Agrigento in Sicily, was both poetic and mythological: thus the luminous fire was that of Zeus, and the water came from the tears of Nestis, a Sicilian deity. Later on, Plato (c. 427-347 BC), born in Athens, adopted a more mathematical concept. He assumed that the four elements were made of very small, invisible particles in the form of regular polyhedra, as previously studied by the Pythagoreans:

Tetrahedron Octahedron FIRE AIR

Icosahedron WATER

Hexahedron EARTH

The cube (hexahedron) has the most stable appearance of earth, while the tetrahedron appears more mobile and “sharp”, aggressive as fire. The octahedron represents air and the icosahedron rolls easily, like flowing water. Now there is a fifth, regular convex polyhedron, the dodecahedron, and according to Plato: “the God used it for the Whole, when he drew the final arrangement“1. This dodecahedron prefigured the notion of the fifth element, as made explicit later on by Aristotle. Dodecahedron

1. Plato, Timée Critias, Timée, 55 c, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2011, text by Albert Rivaud. 2

The amazing history of element names

r Ai

Fi re

HOT

WET W at er

DRY h rt Ea

Aristotle (384-322 BC), born in Stagira in Macedonia, favoured the sensations derived from the elements, their primary qualities being hot and cold on one hand and wet and dry on the other. According to Aristotle, the four elements stem from these basic qualities combined in pairs.

COLD

But the question remains: were there only four elements in the Universe? The fifth element: ether In Greek mythology, Æther (Greek Aithêr) is one of the primordial gods associated with the creation of the world. He personifies the brightest, purest and highest part of the atmosphere, called in Greek aithêr, a name related to the Greek aithein, “to burn, to be luminous”, and the origin of the English word ether. For Aristotle2, the ether was this fifth element in which the stars above us in the sky laid, rotating around the Earth. The alchemists, heirs of the Ancients The principle of the four elements remained predominant throughout the Middle Ages and until the beginning of the 18th century. In regard to the concept of the fifth element, it inspired the alchemists to use the term quinte essence, from the Latin quintus, “fifth”, and essentia, “nature of things”, to designate the final stage of any distillation, hence the more general notion today of quintessence. In the 2nd edition (1778) of Macquer’s Dictionnaire de chymie the word in French éther already had its modern meaning of a highly volatile liquid, but we still find the four elements: fire, air and water, which cannot be decomposed, and earth, purest emanation of which is quartz, instead of the diamond set out in the 1st edition (1766). Lavoisier’s revolutionary theory In 1789, in his Traité élémentaire de chimie, Lavoisier published the first table of chemical elements in the modern sense of the term, including hydrogen and oxygen from the decomposition of water, nitrogen from the decomposition of air and with carbon recognized as the sole constituent of diamond... and this definitively shattered the old four-element theory. Within a decade, a giant leap forward had been taken, as we shall see…

2. Aristotle, Du Ciel, Livre I, 270 b, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2003, text by Paul Moraux. 3

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

1

Earth, a precious diamond mine! carbon (C), coal, diamond, graphite, graphene and fullerenes Diamond, as a chemical product?

➜ Diamond, emanating from a pure element?

Why not, in the article Earth (Terre in French) of the 1st  edition of his Dictionnaire de chymie (1766), Macquer wrote about diamonds: “it is the very matter of this stone that we consider to be the simplest, purest & most elementary earth that we know”.

This text was prophetic because diamond is indeed the emanation of a pure element, certainly not from the earth, in the ancient meaning of the term element, but from carbon, a chemical element in the modern sense.

z Diamonds are eternal, but only in the cinema All very hard matter, including metallic materials, and more specifically diamonds in Theophrastus’ work, were called in Greek adamas, adamantos, formed by the privative a- and the verb damnêmi, “to tame”. The diamond, with its exceptional properties, was therefore described as “untamable” in Greek, which Latin then took over as in the form of adamas, later evolving to diamas, diamantis, hence in French diamant, Italian and Spanish diamante, English diamond and German Diamant. The privative a- was dropped during this evolution, even in Modern Greek, diamanti, as if the diamond was no longer “untamable”. A premonitory step, we might say.

z From diamond to coal, light shed on carbon In 1773, Lavoisier, with the help of Macquer, showed that, far from being eternal, diamonds raised to very high temperatures burned, 4

Earth, a precious diamond mine!

giving the same combustion gas as coal. From there, he identified the element he called “coal substance” in 1781, and Guyton de Morveau, in 1787, named it in French carbone, which readily abbreviated to carbon in English. And then it was proven that diamonds are carbon crystals. They are made up only of carbon atoms, which form cubes stacked on top of each other, a little like Plato imagined the structure of the earth element! The French word carbone was formed on the Latin carbo, carbonis, probably related to the verb cremare, “burn” (cf. cremation). The word carbo first referred to charcoal and later on, especially earth coal. In French, charbon, “coal”, and carbone are etymological doublets, which also exist in other Romance languages, but not in Germanic languages: coal in English and Kohle in German have the same origin, not Latin but Germanic. English

French

Italian

Spanish

German

coal

charbon

carbone (m.)

carbón

Kohle (f.)

carbon

carbone

carbonio

carbono

Kohlenstoff (m.)

German is somewhat different, with Kohlenstoff translating Lavoisier’s “coal substance”. CO2, for example, is called Kohlenstoffdioxid, but also and even more commonly Kohlendioxid. And the radical Karbon-, today Carbon-, is also used, in particular, for Carbonate, Carbonyl...

z Black lead, pencil writing and graphite Charcoal has been used as a black pencil since the beginning of time, used primitively for rock paintings, and this makes it possible to date them, thanks to the so-called carbon 14 dating process. Even today, charcoal is still used to draw: in French, it is fusain (or artists’ charcoal, the result of burning wooden sticks in a kiln without air), called carboncino in Italian for example. In ancient times, people also wrote with a lead-based metal tip, or later with a stone called plumbago (its Latin name, from plumbum, “lead”), plombagine in French, because of its similarity to lead. This stone was also called black lead, in French mine de plomb, where mine meant “ore”. 5

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

But the Swedish chemist Scheele showed, at the end of the 18th century, that this black lead had nothing to do with lead, and that it was actually a particular form of carbon, even better than charcoal for writing. In 1790, the German mineralogist Werner gave for black lead a more satisfactory name, graphite, from the Greek graphein, “to write”. However, the term mine de plomb pencil is still sometimes used in French, hence the common name, lead pencil in general in English. In German, the traditional name of ➜ Graphite molecular the black pencil is Bleistift, from Blei, “lead”, and sheets. Stift, “tip, pencil”.

z More recently: fullerenes... and graphene

➜ Fullerenes

An unexpected event in 1985 was the discovery of a completely new form of carbon, the archetype of which is the C60 spherical set of 60 carbon atoms forming 20  hexagons and 12  pentagons, like a microscopic football.

or, aka, “footballenes” for the C60.

Plato would surely have adored knowing this amazing molecule, he who imagined elementary particles in the shape of polyhedra, even if his own were regular, therefore composed of only one kind of polygon, whereas C60 is a semi-regular, so-called Archimedean polyhedron, because it is composed of two kinds of polygons. This structure was also reminiscent of the geodesic domes (i.e., recalling the shape of the Earth) of the American architect Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), known as Fuller. From there, the derivative name fullerene was given in 1992 to C60 and other related molecules, including the nanotubes discovered a little earlier. 6

➜ Carbon

nanotube.

Earth, a precious diamond mine!

The last striking development in 2004 was that the flat carbon sheet constituting graphite was isolated as a new chemical species, called graphene. ➜ Graphene.

z Epilogue: a mine of discoveries about carbon! Between the diamond, once assimilated to the element earth, and the Fuller dome imitating the Earth, carbon lies at the basis of life on Earth, and it adopts forms as varied as diamonds, graphite, carbon fibre, carbon black, fullerenes and graphene, which offers a “stupefying” diversity, if we dare to think of the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, where we can read LSD (LysergSäureDiethylamid) and from which archaeologists drew their inspiration3 to name the famous Australopithecus, discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, as “Lucy”...

➜ The

geodesic dome at the Montreal World Expo, 1967.

Wikipedia, license cc-by-sa-3.0, Eberhard von Nellenburg.

3. Coppens, Yves, Le genou de Lucy, Poche Odile Jacob, Paris, 2000, 221 p., p. 155. 7

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

2

Air and water, elements of life hydrogen (H), oxygen (O) and nitrogen (N)

Three English chemists, Cavendish, Priestley and D. Rutherford, were the first to isolate hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen respectively, but it was Lavoisier who highlighted the relationships of these gases with water and air. He thus showed that of the four elements of antiquity, two vital ones, water and air, are composed of three chemical elements essential in the construction of living matter: H, O and N.

z Hydrogen generates water, and oxygen acid... In their Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique (1787), de  Morveau, Lavoisier, Berthollet and de Fourcroy designate “the only [element] which produces water by its combination with oxygen” as “Hidrogen, i.e., generating water”. Lavoisier writes as early as 1789, from the Greek hudro-, “relative to water”, from hudôr, “water”. Thus, the element hydro- refers sometimes to water, as in hydroelectric, sometimes to hydrogen, as in hydrocarbon. In the same publication, the authors adopt “the expression of oxigene, drawing it, as M. Lavoisier has long proposed, from the Greek oxus acid & geinomai I generate, because of [the] large number of substances with which it unites in the acid state”. This name, written as early as 1789, logically applies to an element present in many acids, such as HNO3 (nitric acid), H2SO4 (sulphuric acid), H2CO3 (carbonic acid)...

➜ Lavoisier’s device for his experiments used to

demonstrate and characterize the “constituent radical” of water, which he calls hydrogen. Traité élémentaire de chimie (Elementary Treatise on Chemistry), 1789. 8

Air and water, elements of life

However, the authors went too far, adding that this element appeared to be “a necessary principle for acidity”, since it was also found acids such as H2S (hydrogen sulphide) or those formed with halogens (HF, HCl...), which do not contain oxygen. And this last point led to criticism.

z ... and why not the other way around? As early as 1787, a certain de La Métherie, philosopher and mineralogist, criticized the Nomenclature by observing that acidity was not linked to the presence of oxygen. Moreover, he noted that water contained nearly 90% oxygen by mass, much more than hydrogen. From there to reversing the names hydrogen and oxygen, there was only one step... but no one dared to take it.

z Two other ways for naming nitrogen Again in the Nomenclature of 1787, the authors state, about nitrogen: “it needed a particular name, & in searching for it we have also tried to avoid & the inconvenience of forming one of those quite insignificant words which do not relate to any known idea [...], & the perhaps even greater inconvenience of stating prematurely what is still only perceived”. With this last argument, they refute the name alkaligen, considering that the presence of nitrogen was proven in the volatile alkali (ammonia), but not in the other alkalis. They prefer to take into account the property “not to maintain the life of animals, to be really non-vital”, hence the name in French azote, from the privative a and the Greek zôtikos, “vital”, from zôê, “life”. Despite the care with which it was chosen, the name azote did not attract the support of the entire scientific community, not even in France since, as early as 1790, Chaptal preferred the name in French nitrogène, adopting the idea of alkaligène, better targeted on nitric acid. And this time, the Anglo-Saxon world followed this dissident name, hence the English name nitrogen, attested as early as 1794. The table below shows that Italian follows French, but Spanish follows English, while in German the names are, apparently, very different. 9

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element? English

French

Italian

Spanish

German

Symbol

hydrogen

hydrogène

idrogeno

hidrógeno

Wasserstoff

H

oxygen

oxygène

ossigeno

oxígeno

Sauerstoff

O

nitrogen

azote

azoto

nitrógeno

Stickstoff

N

In fact, the German language is fond of compound names of an expressive nature, and this can be seen here: Wasserstoff, from Wasser, “water”, and Stoff, “substance”, has the same etymological meaning as hydrogen, and similarly, Sauerstoff, from sauer, “acid”, is practically an equivalent of oxygen. As for Stickstoff, from ersticken, “to suffocate”, it is a name inspired by the French azote, and not at all by the English nitrogen. Finally, if the names of the elements H, O and N are quite diverse, those of their compounds are more homogeneous, and generally inspired by English: English

French

Italian

Spanish

German

Ion

hydride

hydrure

idruro

hidruro

Hydrid

H-

oxide

oxyde

ossido

óxido

Oxid

O2-

nitride

nitrure

nitruro

nitruro

Nitrid

N3-

azide

azoture

azoturo

azida

Azid

N3-

For example, in French, nitrure replaced azoture, which Lavoisier used (but later on, the name azoture was used again to designate a salt of hydrazoic acid (HN3), a salt called azide in English).

z Epilogue: back to the roots This section illustrates the arbitrary part that persists in any designation. Concerning hydrogen, we have seen that some would have gladly named it oxygen. It should be noted, however, that the link between hydrogen and water is twofold: while hydrogen generates water, hydrogen can also be extracted from water, notably by electrolysis. Is this the case for oxygen too? Yes, but oxygen is already available in the air, and there is no shortage of air. In fact, we can see water as a hydrogen ore (an inexhaustible ore, by the 10

Air and water, elements of life

way), which is opportunely showed by the element hydro- in its name. Moreover, the meaning of the suffix -gen, -genous is sometimes active as in oxygen “which generates acid”, sometimes passive as in exogenous, “which is generated by something exterior”. The word hydrogen can therefore be understood in both meanings. To conclude these first two sections, Lavoisier took us from three of the four elements of antiquity, air, water and earth, to the four most important atoms of the living kingdom, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. This last element owes its name in French, azote, to the fact that it “does not sustain life”, mentioned above, but that does not prevent it from participating in the construction of life!

➜ A

bubble of air under pressure, released at the bottom of the water at a depth of 50 cm, rises, forming a ring, up to the surface of the water where it disappears4

4. Honvault, Jacques, ConSciences, Voyage aux frontières de l’entendement, Les Cavaliers de l’Orage, Paris, 2013, 188 pp., p. 180. 11

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

3

A quest that leads to fire phosphorus (P) and phosgene

The name phosphorus obviously goes back to the Greek phôsphoros, from phôs, phôtos, “light”, and pherein, “to carry”; this etymology reflects a double history, that of words and that of the colourful discovery of phosphorus.

z From Greek phôsphoros to English phosphorus In Greek, the adjective phôsphoros meant “which carries the light” and thus literally applied to a torch that illuminates the surrounds. Then in Late Greek, Phôsphoros referred to the planet Aphrodite (which became Venus, the shepherd’s star) in the early morning, when this “star” is the brightest body in the sky and in a way ushers in daylight. In Latin, its name was Phosphorus, or Lucifer, from lux, lucis, “light”, and ferre, “to carry“, while in the evening it was called Hesperus, from the Greek Hesperos, from hespera, “evening”.

➜ Phôsphoros

referred to the planet Venus, the “shepherd’s star”. 12

A quest that leads to fire

Later on, alchemists gave the name phosphorus to the luminescent substances they encountered. One of the first discoveries, in Bologna in 1602, was the luminescence of calcined barium sulphide, called Bologna phosphorus. Then, nitrate and calcium sulphide were also called phosphorus. The Greek phôsphoros thus led to phosphorus designating in the 17th  century any luminescent substance, and, in this context the extraordinary, if not incredible, discovery of an alchemist from Hamburg took place in 1669.

z How, while searching for gold, phosphorus was discovered Like most alchemists, Henning Brandt was obsessed with the idea of making gold, and he was convinced that the human body contained gold. The name of gold in German, Gold, means “yellow metal”, as if the metal was identified with its colour, and it was only a short step from thinking that a yellow substance should contain gold. This was thought to be the case with urine, and it was under the influence of aurum, “gold”, that the Latin urina, “urine”, became in Latin *aurina, then orine in French in the 12th century, and again urine in French in the 14th century (but remained orina in Spanish). And so Brandt set out to procure gold, or at least the Philosopher’s Stone capable of transmuting lead into gold... from urine! The crucial experiment took place in 1669: the distillation of urine taken to the extreme, followed by calcination of the residue, produced a white and waxy substance which, far from being gold, had the unexpected property of igniting violently in the air and glowing in the dark.

z 2019, the 350th anniversary of the discovery of phosphorus This new substance was therefore a new phosphorus, which other alchemists were able to produce under names such as Kunckel’s phosphorus or English phosphorus, until Lavoisier gave it the status of a chemical element by reserving the name phosphorus, in short. It was indeed the first chemical element whose discovery could be attributed to one person, Henning Brandt, who had found at the same time an unexpected way to produce fire. 13

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

The word phosphorescence derives from the name phosphorus, which is indeed phosphorescent, at least in the usual meaning of the word. However, phosphorescence is strictly defined as a luminescence of purely electronic origin, whereas that of phosphorus is of chemical origin (chemiluminescence). Another curiosity: in Late Greek, phôsphoros is synonymous with phôtophoros, from which both French and English languages borrowed photophore in the 19th century. Hence the strange doublets: phosphorus in chemistry and photophore of a deep sea fish.

➜ The alchemist Henning Brandt, in search of gold and the Philosopher’s Stone, suddenly illuminated by his glass-ware. Joseph Wright (1771).

14

A quest that leads to fire WHERE DOES THE WORD PHOSGENE COME FROM? We could see some sort of synonym for phosphorus in phosgene, which could mean “which generates light”. But not at all: the English chemist John Davy obtained phosgene in 1812 by having chlorine and carbon monoxide react under the action of light, not with the emission of light: ↓light Cl2 + CO → Cl2CO So, etymologically, phosgene means “which is generated by light”. Indeed, the meaning of the suffix -gen, -genous is sometimes active, as in oxygen, “which generates acid”, sometimes passive, as in exogenous, “which is generated by something exterior” (cf. the epilogue to the previous section).

z A fiery, phosphorous epilogue The phosphorus adventure is a magnificent example of serendipity: the phosphorus obtained by Brandt came from phosphates contained in urine, which for a century remained the only source of phosphorus. This element was then extracted from bone, and now from phosphate deposits resulting from a slow accumulation of animal excrements, especially guano from birds and bats. In this regard, the long-term availability of phosphorus poses a problem which, dare we say it, urgently needs us to think hard (phosphorer as we say in French!). Spanish

italian

English

French

German

fόsforo

fosforo

phosphorus

phosphore

Phosphor

➜ The

Spanish fόsforo also designates a match, as a firebearer invented in the 19th century thanks to phosphorus. 15

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

4

The 5th element... towards quintessence! ether, ethyl alcohol, ethane, methane, propane... and alkanes Every chemist has in mind the list of the first alkanes (methane, ethane, propane, butane...), but in everyday life, we mainly know about butane and propane, as well as methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) which is often singled out in connection ➜ Aether, in Latin, refers to the sky in poetry. with the environment. We talk less about ethane, much less in any case than about ethyl alcohol, and one would think that the adjective ethyl comes from the name ethane. In fact, the opposite is true, because in chemistry texts, ethane appeared well after ethyl and both terms go back to the even older name of ether, an organic liquid known for its great volatility.

z An “ethereal” origin The first synthesis of ether dates at least from the 16th century, but its name is attested only in 1730 in an English text by Frobenius, in the Latin form aether (today ether). The author was inspired by the Greek name aithêr, which in Latin became aether, and which referred to the upper region of the atmosphere, the sky in poetry. It is understandable that chemists adopted this name for a volatile and flammable product, which evaporates while seeming to disappear in the air.

z From ether to ethyl Much later, Liebig elucidated the chemical structure of the ether, which he defined as ethyl oxide (today CH3-CH2-O-CH2-CH3). He thus coined the name ethyl for the radical -CH2-CH3, of which he 16

The 5th element... towards quintessence!

gave in 1840 this pretty definition: “Ethyl is the hypothetical radical of all ­ethereal combinations”. On the other hand, this ethyl oxide (diethyl in fact) being the ordinary ether, one named ether any molecule containing an oxygen bridge, R-O-R', from where also polyethers of which some are in common use.

z From ethyl to ethane The name ethyl associates the radical eth- with the suffix -yl, formed from the Greek hulê, initial meaning of which is very concrete: wood (standing wood or cut wood). Then hulê designates any building material (wood, stone...), from which finally it designates any material, whatever it is (concrete or even abstract). Hence, the suffix -yl was adopted to translate the material existence of “hypothetical” radicals, such as the ethyl radical. Finally, the name ethane itself did not appear until 1867 in English, inferred from ethyl by changing the suffix from -yl to -ane. But as much -yl has a true etymological meaning, which ultimately goes back to the Greek name for wood, just as -ane is a formal suffix, of Latin form, definitively adopted at the Geneva Congress of 1892 for alkanes (this term being itself made up of alk(ohol) [now alcohol] + -ane).

z Ethane, one alkane among others The German chemist August Wilhelm von  Hofmann, in his 1867 publication in English, proposed in fact the whole series of names methane (CH4), ethane (CH3-CH3), propane (CH3-CH2-CH3)..., formed on the earlier names of the radicals methyl, ethyl, propyl... where: –m  eth- comes from the Greek methu, “alcoholic beverage”, methyl alcohol having been extracted from wood by distillation, and often mistaken for ethyl alcohol; – p rop- comes from the Greek pro, “before”, and piôn, “fat”, because it is from 3 carbons that the fatty acid properties appear in this series. And von Hofmann continued the series with names based on Latin numerals: ... quartane, quintane, sextane... 17

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

Then quartane was abandoned in favour of butane, where -but comes from the Latin butyrum, “butter” (cf. more details on butane in Ch. 8, Section 2). Finally, the scientific community decided in 1872 to name alkanes from the 5th onwards with names based on numbers in Greek, and no longer in Latin (except for nonane, which remained on the Latin nonus, “ninth”, and not on the Greek ennea, “nine”, as for the enneagone, a 9-sided polygon).

z Alphanumeric series If the names of the first four alkanes are particular, from the 5th onwards, they become purely numerical: pentane, hexane, heptane, octane (the octane number of the car petrol or gasoline is well known)... It’s a bit the same for polygons, which, from the 5th, are called pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon... even if in this case the first names, triangle and quadrilateral, are already based on the numbers 3 and 4, but in Latin. We can also make an analogy, a little farfetched perhaps, with the names of the months of the year. In fact, the Roman calendar initially had 10 months, of which the first 4 had differentiated names (which became March, April, May, June) while the names of the following were serial numbers: Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October... Later, the months of January and February were added, hence the fact that now the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th months of the year are September, October, November and December (Quintilis and Sextilis having meanwhile become July and August). But, more astonishingly: in the great Roman families5, it so happened that only the first four given names of the children were varied, while the following offspring were simply named Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius... (or the feminine equivalent). This is the origin of first names such as Quentin, Sixtine or Octave, which are still given today. By the way, Ethan is a given name of biblical origin... but no, and sorry to say it, any resemblance with ethane is purely coincidental.

5. Ifrah, Georges, Histoire universelle des chiffres, Quand les nombres racontent les hommes, Seghers, Paris, 1981, 568 p., p. 14. 18

The 5th element... towards quintessence!

z Cosmic epilogue The word ether has fallen very low. It was the top of the deified sky in ancient times, and today it is an ordinary term in chemistry that is little used. In modern languages, the god Æther is less present than his grandfather, Chaos, the god of primordial emptiness prior to creation, visible in the word chaos, and furthermore hidden in the word gas. WHERE DOES THE WORD GAS COME FROM? Dutch scientist, Jean-Baptiste van Helmont (1579-1644) was a philosopher, physician, physicist and alchemist. He studied the interactions between physics and physiology, and sought to understand the nature of smoke he observed rising above a flame. To designate this smoke, van Helmont coined a new Latin word, gas, “closely derived from the name chaos of the Ancients”. By this word gas, adopted in all languages (in French, gaz), he evoked the matter brought back by fire to chaos, in the time of the Greek god Chaos, where no order was yet imposed on the elements of the world. 

z 2019, the 230th anniversary of Lavoisier’s table In 1789, Lavoisier established the modern concept of chemical elements and published the first table (as yet imperfect and not yet periodic) of these elements, comprising 33 “simple substances”: – 2 reminiscences of the 5 elements of antiquity, “Caloric” for fire and “Light” for ether; –  compounds such as lime or magnesia; – 23 chemical elements in modern sense of this term: sulphur, arsenic and 16  metals, which will be discussed in the following chapters, as well as the 5 elements 19

Chapter 1 – Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element?

of this first chapter: H, O, N and C, which replace, to some extent, the earth, air and water of Ancients, and phosphorus, P, which is also very important in the construction of living organisms, since it is an essential atom in DNA. These 5 elements are grouped together at the top of the Periodic Table. 1 11

18 2

H

hydrogen hydrogen 3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium

He

2

K

37

Rb

rubidium 55

Cs

caesium 87

Fr

francium

atomic number

4

5

symbol

Be

B

name

beryllium

boron

12

13

Mg

magnesium 20

19 potassium

13

Ca

calcium

Al

3 21

Sc

scandium

38

39

strontium

yttrium

Sr

Y

56

Ba

22

23 vanadium

Ti 40

Zr

zirconium

Hf

hafnium

88

Ra

104 actinide

5

titanium

72

lanthanide

barium

radium

4

Rf

rutherfordium 57

La

lanthanum 89

Ac

actinium

V

41

Nb

niobium 73

Ta

tantalum 105

Db

dubnium 58

Ce

cerium 90

Th

thorium

6 24

Cr

chromium 42

Mo

7 25

Mn

manganese 43

Tc

molybdenum technetium 74

W

tungsten 106

Sg

seaborgium 59

Pr

75

Re

rhenium 107

Bh

bohrium 60

Nd

8 26

Fe iron 44

Ru

ruthenium

91

92 uranium

Pa

U

10

27

28

Co

Ni

cobalt

nickel

45

46

Rh

rhodium

76

77

osmium

iridium

Os 108

Hs

hassium 61

Pm

praseodymium neodymium promethium

protactinium

9

93

Np

neptunium

Pd

palladium 78

Ir

Pt

platinum

109

110

Mt

Ds

11 29

Cu

copper 47

Ag silver 79

Au gold

111

Rg

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium 62

Sm

samarium

63

Eu

europium

94

Pu

95

plutonium

Am

americium

64

Gd

gadolinium 96

Cm curium

12 30

Zn zinc 48

Cd

cadmium 80

Hg

mercury 112

Cn

copernicium 65

Tb

terbium 97

Bk

berkelium

aluminium 31

Ga

gallium 49

In

indium 81

Tl

thallium

14 66

CC

carbon carbon

98

Cf

fluorine

OO

15 15

16 sulphur

32

germanium

arsenic

selenium

Ge 50

Sn tin

82

Pb lead

114

66

oxygen oxygen

phosphorus phosphorus 33

flerovium

Dy

17

14

Si

113

dysprosium

N

nitrogen Azote

16 88

silicon

nihonium

Nh

15 77

Fl 67

Ho

holmium 99

Es

californium einsteinium

PP

As 51

Sb

antimony 83

Bi

bismuth

S

34

Se

9

F

17

Cl

chlorine

52

53 iodine

84

Po

polonium

I

85

At

astatine

115

116

117

moscovium

livermorium

tennessine

Mc 68

Er

erbium 100

Fm

fermium

Lv 69

Tm

thulium 101

Md

mendelevium

10

Ne neon 18

Ar

argon

35

Br

bromine

tellurium

Te

helium

Ts 70

Yb

ytterbium

36

Kr

krypton 54

Xe

xenon 86

Rn

radon 118

Og

oganesson 71

Lu

lutetium

102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

➜ The

Ancients had understood everything: their “ether” is the primordial element, from which derives the “stardust6“ we are made of.

6. According to the sentence of Carl Sagan (1934-1996), borrowed by Hubert Reeves in Poussières d’étoiles, Seuil, Paris, 1994 (1st ed. 1984), 254 pp. 20

Lr

CHAPTER

2

A chance for artists and craftsmen… Where we recall that the Ancients knew 7 metals... 1 A metal for eternity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24

2 Metal weddings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

3 Emblematic metals and alloys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

4 The metal of war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

5 Teasing game between metals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

6 Tales around brimstone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

THE 7 METALS AND OTHER ELEMENTS KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS In the 8th century BC, in his Works and Days, the Greek poet Hesiod presents the myth of the Ages of mankind1: – first the Golden Age, the ideal time when, in perfect harmony with Nature in an eternal spring, humans were not obliged to work; – then in the Silver Age, they manifested immoderation (in Greek hubris) and experienced pain and suffering; – the Bronze Age that followed was a warrior age, which eventually annihilated itself, followed by the Age of heroes and their epics, including the famous Trojan War; – and finally, the Iron Age, stretching to today, the hardest of times because discord reigns even inside families. It is remarkable to find, as markers of this poetic fresco, the metals the first humans were able to find in their native state: gold and silver, copper (that they transformed into bronze) and iron. After the purely metaphorical vision of the Golden and Silver Ages, it was a prefiguration of the great periods defined by modern archaeologists: the Bronze Age (between about 3 000 and 1 000 years BC), followed by the Iron Age, where these metals were used in particular to make weapons and to wage wars.

➜ Scythian

gold, silver Athenian coin, bronze axe-head and iron spear-head.

The 7 metals of antiquity A fifth metal exists in its native state, viz., mercury, a liquid that probably intrigued the first humans. The Ancients knew very early how to extract lead from its ores, as well as tin, itself alloyed with copper to produce bronze. The Ancients therefore knew 7 metals, a number that would remain unchanged until the end of the Middle Ages. And they became aware of the particular nature of these 7  substances, which in fact constituted a first chemical

1. Hésiode, Théogonie, Les travaux et les jours, Le bouclier, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1964, text by Paul Mazon, Les travaux et les jours, p. 90. 22

The amazing history of element names

c­ ategory, that of metals. It was again Aristotle who clarified this question, as we shall see with the etymology of the word metal2. From mine to mineral ore, and then to metal The word metal comes from the Latin metallum, itself derived from the Greek metallon, which originally meant a mine, especially a gold or silver mine operated by shafts and galleries. Then metallon referred to a mine in general, hence to any mining production, and it was Aristotle who defined metals as “substances that are extracted from mines and are fusible or malleable like iron, gold, copper”, hence, in Greek, metallon, “metal”. At the same time, the word mine comes from Old French mine, which first referred to both a mine and an ore, hence in French mine de plomb, or mine, designating in English the lead of a pencil as we saw in the previous chapter. Chemical elements before being known Without pretending to rewrite history, it is surprising that the Ancients did not consider the 7 metals as elements. In fact, metals were for them only particular forms of the element earth, itself one of the 4 primitive elements (fire, air, water, earth). The alchemists persevered in this conception since they dreamed, for example, of transmuting lead into gold, which itself is not absolutely unalterable. Consequently, the word earth could also designate, in Old English, any substance extracted from the ground, such as a mineral like quartz called vitrifiable earth, or an ore like that of tungsten called heavy earth, the name of the metal being derived from Swedish tung, “heavy”, and sten, “stone”, or even any metal extracted from an ore, hence the surprising terms: – rare earths, which are actually metals, discussed in Ch. 3, Section 3; – alkaline earth metals (cf. Ch. 4, Section 3), which are called earths in the sense that they were found in an ore, i.e., in earth, as opposed to certain alkaline metals found in plants. We saw in Ch. 1 that Lavoisier put an end to the concept of the 4 elements by publishing the first table of chemical elements in 1789. This historic table includes the 7 metals of antiquity, as well as sulphur, a substance also found in its native state, again a chemical element that was not unknown but ignored as such. It is time now to look at each of these metals, as well as at sulphur at the end of this chapter – beginning thereby “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” – with gold. 2. Halleux, Robert, Le problème des métaux dans la science antique, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1974, 252 p., p. 45. 23

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

1

A metal for eternity gold (Au)

The names given to gold in Europe are varied: in Ancient Greek khrusos, of Semitic origin and still today in Modern Greek, in French or, from Latin aurum, in German Gold, in English gold, in Russian zoloto... These names indeed go back to several origins, one of which is linked to the bright colour of this metal, which has always been actively sought after by humans.

z The yellow metal par excellence It is indeed, in Slavic languages, to the same Indo-European root *gholtom that the names of the colour yellow and those of gold are attached: for example in Russian zoloto, “gold”, and žëltyj, “yellow”, or in Polish złoto, “gold”, and z˙ ółty, “yellow”, hence the name of the Polish currency zloty: etymologically, Polish coin money is all made of gold! In German, there is a relation between Gold, “gold”, and gelb, “yellow”, and similarly in English, between gold and the Old English geolu, “yellow”, which has become yellow in Modern English. These names, and their equivalents in the other Germanic languages, are indeed related again to the same Indo-European root, *gholtom, which designates the colour yellow, and gold by metaphor. This explains the phonetic correspondence between Russian zoloto, “gold” (based on the consonants z-l-t), and English gold (based on g-l-d). Thus, in Germanic and Slavic languages, we have a vast set of names in which gold is designated by a kind of periphrase: the yellow metal, golden yellow of course3. 3. Buck, Carl Darling, A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal Indo-European languages, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949 (reprinted 1988), 1515 p., p. 609. 24

A metal for eternity

z Gold, called by its name The Latin aurum, “gold”, is related to another root, *ausom, which could be the true Indo-European name for gold. Apart from Latin and its derivatives in the Romance (or, oro, Romanian aur...) and Celtic (Breton aour...) languages, this root *ausom has left almost no trace in modern languages. As we have just seen, for a reason that is not known, in Germanic and Slavic languages it was found preferable to name gold indirectly, “yellow (metal)”, rather than calling it by its own name. However, this situation is not unique. It can be found somewhat with the names of the bear, the Indo-European name of which is used in Romance (Latin ursus, ours...) and Celtic (Breton art...) languages but not in Germanic and Slavic languages, which use the periphrase: “brown” animal in Germanic languages (bear, Bär...) and the “honey eater” in Slavic languages (medved’ in Russian...). This is known as a linguistic taboo, as if certain peoples had avoided naming the bears explicitly, it was either because they feared them, or because ➜ The Golden Bear (Goldener Bär) at they respected, or even divinized them... as the Berlin film festival. is venerated today the Golden Bear, which Wikipedia, license cc-by-2.0, Solar ikon. rewards films at the Berlin Film Festival. In another field, gold may also have been the subject of superstition.

z From haloes to other gilded objects

European oriole ♂ (Oriolus oriolus) is golden yellow.

➜ The

From aurum comes in Latin aureolus, hence aureola corona, “golden crown”, and finally aureole in French, also used in English for art or astronomy, besides halo or crown. We also recognize aurum in auriferous and the names of the aurous (Au+) and auric (Au3+) ions. Then from the Late Latin, aurum was challenged by the form orum, which has prevailed 25

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

in many usual words of Romance languages, but in very few English words, like orpiment (from the Latin auripigmentum), the name of arsenic sulphide... or the name of a bird with golden yellow plumage, the oriole, from the Old French oriol (today loriot), itself from the Latin aureolus, “golden”. For fish, English restaurantgoers usually know the French word daurade or dorade for several species of sea breams. Among these fish, the royal daurade (in ➜ The gilthead bream (Sparus aurata) has English gilthead bream) has a name golden eyebrows. Gianni Neto. linked to gold in Latin with Pliny the Elder, aurata, and in Greek with Aristotle, khrusophrus, where we find ophrus, “eyebrow”, and the Greek khrusos, “gold”.

z Epilogue and immortality In many Greek words, we find the element khrus(o), becoming in Latin and then in English and French chrys(o), and it refers either to gold or to the yellow colour of gold. Thus the everlasting flower, known in French as the immortelle, a plant with golden yellow flowers coming from the East, was called in Greek helikhrusos, that is to say “gold of the sun”. Since its flowers

➜ The

everlasting flower (Helichrysum stoechas), used in antiquity for funeral wreaths. 26

A metal for eternity

do not wither, which echoes the durability of gold, they were used in ancient times to make funeral wreaths. Then in Latin the everlasting flower was called helichrysus, or chrysanthemon (with anthemon, “flower”), from which the name of the chrysanthemum, the flower of cemeteries, originally in France and also in other countries of catholic tradition. Chrysanthemums do originate from yellow wildflowers, but despite their name, many of the varieties of chrysanthemums grown today are not yellow. Finally, a statue is said to be chryselephantine when it is made of gold and ivory.

➜ Chryselephantine

statue of Zeus in Olympia, the third wonder of the world, made by the Greek sculptor Phidias around 436 BC. Engraving of 1815.

27

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

2

Metal weddings mercury (Hg) and cinnabar, silver (Ag), platinum (Pt)

Native mercury exists in nature and it certainly fascinated the first humans with its silvery appearance and fluidity, especially in the form of strangely mobile droplets. In addition, the Ancients extracted this metal from its main ore, mercury sulphide (HgS), called cinnabar, from the Latin cinnabaris, itself from the Greek kinnabari. In fact, it is in cinnabar that most of the native mercury is found.

➜ Native

mercury droplets, exuding from a sample of red cinnabar (αHgS).

Photo: Jean-Michel Le Cléac’h - Museum de Minéralogie de l’École des Mines-ParisTech.

z Liquid silver, flowing like water Both in Greek with Theophrastus and in Latin with Pliny the Elder, mercury was named after its resemblance to silver. Mercury obtained from cinnabar was compared to liquid silver in Greek, arguros khutos, from the verb khein, “to flow”, or to lively, animated silver in Latin, argentum vivum. Hence the ancient designations of mercury in the Romance and Germanic languages: in French vif-argent, in Italian argento vivo, in Spanish plata liquida, in English quicksilver, and in German Quecksilber, which has remained in use in this language. The Ancients had noticed that native mercury was even more fluid, and they compared it definitely to water: in Greek hudrarguros, from hudôr, “water”, and arguros, “silver”, hence in Latin hydrargyrus, becoming in ancient French hydrargyre and in Medieval Latin hydrargyrum, which explains the chemical symbol Hg.

28

Metal weddings

However, in English and in most Romance languages, these ancient names went out of use between the late Middle Ages and the 18th century.

z The metal twinned with the planet Mercury Mercury is one of the 7 metals known in antiquity and associated with the 7 non-fixed “stars” observable at the time. After some hesitation, quicksilver was associated with Mercury, whose velocity around the Sun evoked the fluidity and mobility of the droplets of this metal. Finally, probably to avoid confusion, the metal was named after the planet rather than after silver in English as early as 1386 and in the Romance languages (English mercury, French mercure, Italian and Spanish mercurio), mercury being in these languages the only one of the 7 ancient metals to finally bear the same name as its associated star. As for the god Mercury of the Romans, assimilated to the Hermes of the Greeks, he was mainly the protector of merchants. In Latin, his name Mercurius is linked to merx, “merchandise”, and merces, “price of merchandise” (and merci – excuse my French! – for “thank you”). Moreover, the attributions of Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth are combined in those of the mythical Hermes Trismegistus, at the origin of hermeticism and the so-called hermetic texts developed by the alchemists. The latter attached great importance to mercury and its associations with other substances: amalgams. ➜ Mercury

29

or Hermes, god of commerce.

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

z This metal that “marries” other metals The name amalgam, from the alchemistic Latin amalgama attested in the 13th century, was long considered as a deformation of the Greek malagma, “ointment”, borrowed by Pliny in Latin, and linked to the Greek verb malassein, in Latin malaxare, “to soften”, hence in French malaxer, “to knead”. However, in the Littré (supplement 1886), a link is established between amalgama and the Arabic al-djam’a, “the meeting”, or also “the marriage”, amalgam, being sometimes presented by alchemists as a marriage between mercury and another metal. Today, this Arabic origin is retained as probable in dictionaries, but it must be acknowledged that the etymology of amalgam is still, dare we say it, rather hermetic.

z History of silver It was noted above that the names of silver in Europe are of three kinds: – the Greek arguros, “silver” – from the adjective argos, “white, shiny” (not to be confused with its homonym, argos, “inert”, from which the name argon comes) –, becomes in Latin argentum, hence argent in French, argento in Italian... It is probable that Italian navigators are at the origin of the name of Argentina, where they would have found silver objects made by the Southern Amerindians; – English silver and German Silber belong to another family of names, which is German-Slavic (in Serbian srebro, hence the name Srebrenica, where some old silver mines are located); – the Spanish plata, “silver”, is separate (along with Portuguese prata): it comes from the Medieval Latin plata designating a metal plate, especially made of silver. In Argentina, the Spaniards named Rio de la Plata (“Silver River”) a vast estuary that was supposed to lead to the legendary silver mountain of the Sierra de la Plata. And that’s not all, as the name of a third metal appears in the epilogue.

30

Metal weddings

z An epilogue with a silver grey lining The Spanish explorer and scientist Ulloa discovered a native metal in Colombia that resembles silver, but is less shiny. In 1748, he named it in Spanish platina, diminutive of plata, “silver”, which is translated into French as platine, first feminine as platina, then masculine, as well as in Spanish where its name became platino. From there in the other languages: Italian platino, English platinum, German Platin... Without wishing to make an untoward amalgamation, there is an etymological connivance between mercury, silver and platinum.

➜ Fresco

of Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii (Italy), where cinnabar (HgS) was widely used as a red pigment in paintings.

31

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

3

Emblematic metals and alloys copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), brass and bronze

Brass gives us the opportunity to deal with its main components, zinc and copper, itself alloyed with tin in bronze. Although it may have been produced incidentally in small quantities in antiquity, zinc was only identified at the end of the 17th century. At that time, it was called zinch in French, now zinc as in English, from German Zink, perhaps from Zinke, “fork tooth”, because of the shape of some zinc crystals forming at the mouth of the smelting furnace.

➜ Dendritic

zinc crystals formed in the metallurgical furnace.

Unlike zinc, copper has been well-known, named and used pure or alloyed, since the earliest times.

z Copper and bronze through the ages Copper and tin are among the 7 metals known to the Ancients, from which they derived a major alloy, bronze, to which they gave however the same name as copper: – in Greek, khalkos, “copper, bronze”, from which the prefix chalco-, “copper”, is formed: thus in prehistory, the Chalcolithic period marked the beginning of the copper industry, an intermediate period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age; hence also chalcopyrite (CuFeS2); – in classical Latin aes, aeris, “copper, bronze”, from which the poetic name of bronze in French, airain, as well as the name of copper, a little surprisingly, in Italian rame, through a Latin derivative, aeramen, “copper, bronze”. 32

Emblematic metals and alloys

Then in Late Latin, the name cyprum appears for copper, derived from Cyprus due to the abundance of copper mines on the island named in English, as in Latin, Cyprus. Later on, cyprum evolves into cuprum, from which most of the names for copper in Europe are derived. The legendary birth of Venus on the shores of Cyprus is one of the reasons for the ancient correspondence between the metal copper and the planet Venus. As for the word bronze, it is borrowed from the Italian bronzo, the origin of which is uncertain: from a Persian name? Or from the name of Brindisi, where, according to Pliny the Elder, a famous bronze was produced? The above information is gathered in the table below, where the names that are at the origin of a series of others are written in bold: Greek

Latin

Italian

unknown

unknown

zinco

khalkos

aes, aeris cyprum, cuprum

khalkos

aes, aeris

French Spanish English

rame bronzo

German

zinc

cinc

zinc

Zink

cuivre

cobre

copper

Kupfer

bronze

bronce

bronze

Bronze

z Brass since antiquity Could the Ancients produce brass when they didn’t know about zinc? The answer is ‘Yes’, because they knew of certain minerals, such as calamine (zinc silicate), from which they extracted, in combination with copper, an alloy of copper and zinc. This alloy was called oreikhalkos in Greek (= “mountain copper”, probably because of the mines located in the mountains), hence the Latin word orichalcum, also written aurichalcum, under the influence of the golden yellow colour of brass, sometimes called yellow copper. Some common English dictionaries still include the archaic name orichalcum, supplanted nowadays by brass, which is obviously of a completely different origin. As a matter of fact, this origin is obscure, as is that of German Messing, “brass”. As for names of brass in Romance 33

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

languages, they have a common origin as shown in the following table, but this origin remains uncertain. Greek

Latin

Italian

French

Spanish

English

German

oreikhalkos

orichalcum

ottone

laiton

latón

brass

Messing

➜ A

boar made of brass sheet metal from the 1st century BC: a replica reassembled at the Keltenmuseum in Hallein (Salzburg, Austria) of the Gaul warrior emblem discovered in 1989 in Soulac-sur-Mer (Gironde).

Wikipedia Creative Common, license cc-by-sa-3.0, Wolfgang Sauber.

The French name laiton, attested in the 13th century, was laton in Old French, itself related to the Spanish laton (now latón), first attested in the allaton form (in 852), with a beginning in al- suggesting an Arabic origin. According to the etymological dictionaries of Spanish and French, laton is in fact a borrowing from the Arabic latun, “brass”, itself related to ancient Turkish altun, designating gold (today altan), or copper in some rare dialects. However, this etymology is controversial: Spanish laton could have the same Germanic origin as French latte, “lath”, brass being supplied to craftsmen in the form of elongated plates, laths. This explains the name of tinplate (tin-plated iron) in Spanish lata, and in Italian latta, also worked from laths: an explanation based on the shape of the semifinished products used, and no longer on the nature of the metals. 34

Emblematic metals and alloys

z Epilogue and metal anthology Let us return to the zinc ore called calamine, a deformation of its name in Latin, cadmia, itself borrowed from the Greek kadmia, derived from Kadmos, the name of the legendary founder of the ancient Greek city of Thebes, because this ore, also called Kadmos stone, was extracted from nearby mines. However, a metal very close to zinc (just below it in column 12 of the Periodic Table) was discovered in this calamine, hence the name cadmium that the German chemist Stromeyer gave it in 1817, from the Latin cadmia, “calamine”.

➜ This

Greek crater, found in Vix in 1953 in the tomb of a Celtic princess, was probably made in Italy, weighs 200 kg and is 1.64 m high.

Vix Crater, bronze, 6th century BC, Musée du Pays Châtillonnais - Trésor de Vix, Châtillon-surSeine, Côte-d’Or. © Mathieu Rabaud - RMN Grand Palais.

35

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

4

The metal of war iron (Fe), siderite, pyrite, hematite and magnetite

Several iron ores, already well-known in ancient times, had names in Ancient Greek translating their most striking property: pyrite (FeS2), from the Greek pur, “fire”, because it is a fire stone; hematite (Fe2O3), from the Greek haima, “blood”, because, reduced to powder, it is a red pigment, magnetite (Fe3O4), from the Greek Magnês lithos, “magnet”, because it is magnetic (cf. Ch. 4, Section 4). But natural iron carbonate (FeCO3) was only described in 1845 by the Austrian mineralogist Haidinger, who named it siderite, simply from the Greek sidêros, “iron”, not pointing to any remarkable property. This Greek name for iron can be found in siderurgy, or in sideroxylon, the name of a tree with very hard wood, also called ironwood. What is striking is the lack of an obvious connection between the names of iron in Greek sidêros (which has remained in Modern Greek), in Latin ferrum, in English iron, in German Eisen...

z Iron falling from the sky The Earth has a metallic core (the nife = Ni + Fe) consisting mainly of iron (≈ 85%) and nickel (≈ 7%). Similarly, among the asteroids, from which meteorites regularly fall on the Earth, some also have a core composed mainly of iron and, to a lesser extent, nickel. This is why we find meteorites that are very rich in iron, called stony-iron meteorites or siderolites, from the Greek sidêros, “iron”, and lithos, “stone”. They were used to make objects out of so-called meteoritic iron, long before the metallurgy of the Iron Age itself. This is the case of the dagger placed in the tomb of Tutankhamun (who died around 1350 BC). ➜ Iron

dagger of Tutankhamun. 36

The metal of war

Men understood very early on that the metallic-looking stones they found on the ground had fallen from the sky and came from the fragmentation of visible celestial bodies in the form of shooting stars or luminous bolides. Pliny the Elder, for example, states that “stones fall frequently” and reports seeing “a stone that has just fallen” in a field.

➜ Pliny

the Elder states that “stones fall frequently”.

Fotolia.com – JohanSwanepoel.

It was therefore known that meteorite iron came from the sidereal world, i.e., from the Latin sideralis, “relative to the stars, sidereal”, from sidus, sideris, “star”, and it is therefore tempting to compare sidereal with the Greek sidêros, “iron”. A bewitching hypothesis, even if it leads to some sideration, coming, with certainty this time, as Latin sideratio, “fatal action of the stars”, from sidus, sideris, “star”. Alas, this hypothesis is not validated by linguists, who point out in this respect that the initial /s/ in Latin often corresponds to the initial /h/ in Greek, as for example the name of salt: sal, salis in Latin, but hals, halos in Greek (cf. halogen). To this day, we still ignore the origin of sidêros, the Greek name for iron, which has moreover a connection with a “star”, viz., Mars. 37

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

z Iron and Mars Each of the 7 metals known in antiquity had a correspondent among the stars, and for iron it was the planet Mars, itself dedicated to the god of war Mars. This association was based, on the one hand, on the reddish colour of the planet, reminiscent of the red of hematite or rusty iron, and, on the other hand, on iron as a material for weapons and warfare, which itself causes blood to flow, also red (hence the name hematite, from Greek haima, “blood”). And what is amazing is that all this had a premonitory side: the red colour of Mars is precisely due to iron, combined with oxygen in the hematite present on the surface of the planet, and the red of the blood is also due to the iron in our haemoglobin (from haima, “blood”, and globin) carried by red corpuscles of blood. For alchemists at least, another name for iron was Mars, hence the adjective martial in the sense of “relative to iron”. In medicine, we speak of martial deficiency for iron deficiency, responsible for anaemia (from an + haima, “blood”). And in everyday language, in reference to the god Mars, we speak of a martial air or martial arts, such as fencing for example, where “iron is crossed”.

➜ The

planet Mars, seen through a telescope... and a red corpuscle seen through a microscope.

z No Indo-European name for iron Like the Greek sidêros, the Latin ferrum, “iron” (hence in Spanish hierro), is of obscure origin, and it obviously has no connection with the Greek, or indeed with the German-Celtic root *isarnon, which is found in the 38

The metal of war

iron names in Breton houarn, as well as in German Eisen and in English iron. In fact, it is thought that iron, other than that of meteorites found by chance, was not known to the Indo-European world.

z Epilogue of super and anti-heroes What is the connection between Ysengrin, the wolf in Reynard the Fox, Iron Man, a superhero in Marvel, Grand Ferré, a Picardy hero of the Hundred Years’ War, and Sidêrô, a cruel female character in Greek mythology? Answer: the name of iron and its hardness, less visible in Ysengrin, where, however, the element Ysen- relates well to the German Eisen, “iron”.

➜ Did

Iron Man fall from the sky like an asteroid? Anthony Stark, alias Iron Man, appeared in 1963 (in English, stark means “rigid”, as is iron).

39

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

5

Teasing game between metals lead (Pb), molybdenum (Mo) and tin (Sn) galena, molybdenite and cassiterite

Galena is a mineral that has played a brilliant role in the history of radio, when wireless radio took off in the first half of the 20th century thanks to the galena set. It was discovered that a galena crystal was a semiconductor and that a diode was obtained by applying a metal tip to a galena crystal, paving the way for silicon, the essential component of all modern electronics.

➜ The

ancestor of the diode, a key component of the galena set.

www.FurnishYourCastle.com

z Galena, a brilliant mineral In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) used the Latin galena, hence galena in English and Spanish, galène in French, Galenit in German. This Latin name is the equivalent of the Greek galênê, a name attested seven centuries earlier in the Odyssey to designate the calm of the sea, the tranquillity. Hence the Greek adjective galênos, “calm”, which was also the nickname of the great 2nd century Greek physician Galen, the father of galenics. But what, you may ask, does this have to do with galena? In the origins of Greek, galênê was more precisely the calm of the sea shining under the Sun, a meaning that has been compared to the Greek verb gelan, “to shine”. And the metaphor of the sea with silvery reflections could therefore explain the use of galênê for a shiny mineral such as galena, which is often silvery – and this maybe accounts for the other name for galena, lead glance, recalling its metallic grey reflection. 40

Teasing game between metals

➜ Silvery

reflections on the sea and on the galena.

This use of galênê for lead sulphide is not attested prior to Pliny’s writings about galena, but as a connoisseur of Greek history, Pliny could not ignore the deeper meaning of galênê. In any case, he called galena the lead sulphide and also sometimes other lead ores, or even lead itself, i.e., inaccuracies in vocabulary, inevitable at that time.

z Lead and tin, a story of unrelated twins In Greek, the name of lead was molubdos, and that of tin kassiteros (which remains in the name of tin dioxide, cassiterite). Then, the name of lead in Latin was plumbum (hence the symbol Pb, the French plomb, the Spanish plomo), but Pliny somewhat complicated the subject by naming tin plumbum album (= white lead). Moreover, in some cases he used molybdoena as a synonym for galena. Finally, under the name stagnum, he described an alloy of lead and silver which was then used to coat the inside of copper vessels: this alloy was replaced by tin, which in turn was called stagnum, then in Late Latin stannum, hence the symbol Sn, French étain and Spanish estaño, whereas in Italian, it is from stagnum that comes stagno, “tin”. And from stannum also come the qualifiers stannous (with Sn2+) and stannic (with Sn4+). Note that all these Greco-Latin references are not found in Germanic languages: in English lead and German Blei, as well as in English tin and German Zinn are of obscure origin. The table below shows the names given to lead, tin and molybdenum from ancient Greek to modern languages: Greek

molubdenos

kassiteros

Latin

plumbum (nigrum)

plumbum album

Late Latin

stannum

French

molybdène

plomb

étain

Spanish

molibdeno

plomo

estaño

English

molybdenum

lead

tin

German

Molybdän

Blei

Zinn

41

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

z It has the colour of lead, the consistency of lead... but it’s not lead To add to the confusion, some minerals have been mistaken for lead. This was the case with plumbago (name borrowed in English from Latin), or black lead, and a mineral once called molybdena. It was not until 1778 that the Swedish chemist Scheele demystified these names: plumbago in fact was graphite (cf. Ch. 1, Section 1) and “molybdena” was actually the sulphide of a new metal, later named molybdenum (Mo), its sulphide becoming molybdenite (MoS2). Note that these two “false leads”, molybdenite and graphite, are still associated today in the composition of lubricants, the so-called molygraphites. In the same vein, zinc sulphide, blende, was for a long time confused with galena, and moreover named false galena. Its name comes from the German blenden, “to deceive”, because one expected, in vain, to draw lead from it. The story is reminiscent of nickel, named after its “deceptive” ore, from which one tried, in vain, to extract copper (cf. Ch. 3, Section 5). A variety of blende, sphalerite, was named from the Greek sphaleros, “deceptive”, again because of the confusion with galena (the use of sphalerite is now generalised, to the detriment of blende).

z We can still wax on: an epilogue about lead Modern names are unequivocal, but in common parlance, old names resist and are still used. Thus, Latin plumbum, “lead”, is also present in current English. We used to have lead in our house piping hence the plumber (in French plombier) even if he uses mainly copper and PVC plastic, and no longer any lead. On another hand, a plumbline (the fil à plomb in French) is made of a thread and a plumb, not necessarily made of lead. The adjective plumb means “vertical, correct” (as d’aplomb in French) and the verb to plumb means “to plunge to explore (the depths)”. Unexpectedly, the name of a sea bird in French, plongeon, “loon”,

➜ The

Arctic loon (Gavia arctica), in French plongeon arctique, is a skilful diver. Wikipedia Creative Commons, cc-by-sa-2.0, Steve Garvie.

42

Teasing game between metals

comes from the Late Latin plumbio, from plumbum, “lead”, because it disappears quickly and for a long time underwater, like the fisherman’s plumb. Later on, from the popular Latin *plumbicare came the French verb plonger, “to dive”, which, like the bird’s name, goes back to the metaphor of the plumb sinking to the bottom. In English, to plunge comes from Old French, and then, surprisingly, from the Latin name of lead. A plummet is a small plumb and to plummet means “to dive straight down”, like a bird of prey.

➜ At the edge of the Solar System as known to the Ancients, Saturn takes nearly thirty years to go

round the Sun, its orbit being some 1 500 000 000 km in radius. The Sun barely lights this heavy, dull planet reminiscent of the lead that was already associated with it in antiquity. An association that has continued for a long time since lead poisoning is still called saturnism today.

43

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

6

Tales around brimstone sulphur (S), antimony (Sb), stibine and alcohol

A xanthic acid has the general formula:

Its chemical reaction with an alcohol (R'OH) gives a xanthate (esterification reaction):

This name is formed from the Greek xanthos, “yellow”, because of the yellow colour of most xanthates, also called dithiocarbonates, because two of the three oxygen atoms of the element CO3 are replaced by a sulphur atom. This leads us to deal with sulphur, but why thio?

z Sulphur, the element of the gods In Greek, sulphur was called theion, which, already in the Iliad and the Odyssey, referred to the smoke of sulphur, was used for purification. The comparison is tempting with theion, the neutral form of adjective theios, “divine, relative to the gods”, derived from theos, “god”. One can imagine the divine will expressed by an oracle surrounded by sulphurous vapours. We also think of the verb thuein, “to offer a sacrifice to the gods”, to which is attached thuia, the Greek name of the Barbary thuja, a fragrant coniferous tree from North Africa, the wood of which was burned like incense.

44

Tales around brimstone

From theion is derived the element thio-, in thiochemistry, “chemistry of sulphur”, and which designates a sulphur atom as we have just seen in dithiocarbonate. This is also the case in a thiosulphate ion S2O32-, where a sulphur atom replaces one of the four oxygen atoms of SO42-, and thus combines the Greek and Latin names of sulphur.

z Sulphur in Latin Indeed, the name of sulphur in Latin is sulpur, which became sulphur under the influence of the Greek, then later on sulfur, hence in Italian zolfo, in French soufre, in German Schwefel, while English has retained sulphur (or sulfur in America), and Spanish azufre comes from the ancient expression (piedr)a sufre, “stone of sulphur”. Latin

Italian

French

Spanish

English

German

sulpur, sulphur, sulfur

zolfo

soufre

azufre

sulphur, sulfur

Schwefel

solfuro

sulfure

sulfuro

sulphide, sulfide

Sulfid

The Latin form sulfur inspired the term sulfure in French and the equivalent in the Romance languages, but English, having retained sulphur, sulfur, preferred sulphide, sulfide, imitated by the German. More generally, English uses the suffix -ide (cf. chloride) and French -ure (cf. chlorure), except for oxyde (formerly oxide).

z All kinds of sulphides In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder rightly remarks that sulphur “has the property of acting powerfully on many different substances” and he presents several minerals that are sulphides, such as galena (PbS), iron pyrite (FeS2), cinnabar (HgS), or a fine powder named in Latin stibium (related to the Greek stimmi, stibi), the main component of eye make-up that was already used in Ancient Egypt.

45

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

➜ Portrait

of a lady with eyeshadow on the tomb of Menna, in the Valley of the Nobles, in Egypt.

It is known today that this stibium must have been most often a lead compound like galena, but during the Middle Ages, alchemists used the name stibium for the ore of a closely related metal (a metalloid today in fact) named in Medieval Latin antimonium (related to the Greek stimmi?), hence in English antimony, in German Antimon, in Italian and Spanish antimonio, and in French antimoine, whose strange form, equivalent to English anti-monk, did not fail to inspire “monastic” and fanciful legends. The chemical symbol for antimony remained Sb and the stibine is today known to be antimony trisulphide (Sb2S3). 50

51

Sn

Sb

tin

antimony 83

82

Pb

Bi

lead

bismuth

Antimony was easily confused with lead or tin, or even bismuth, which will appear in Ch. 3. 46

Tales around brimstone

z Cosmetic epilogue This blush is known by its Arabic name, kohl, and it is from al-kohl that the word alcohol comes, firstly designating a refined powder similar to the ancient stibium, then any refined product, including a liquid obtained by distillation, thus including essences such as spirit of wine, which Lavoisier finally recommended to be called alkool. Then the notion of alcohol function (-OH) was generalized in chemistry, first in German, Alkohol. Much later, the function thioalcohol (-SH), or thiol, or mercaptan, was defined, from an old Latin name mercurius captans, “which captures mercury”. These sulphur molecules react with mercury, which was one of the three alchemical principles, along with sulphur, precisely, and sea salt.

➜ A

solfatara (name borrowed from the Italian) is a place of sulphur deposition due to the emanations of sulphurous gases in volcanic regions, full of mysteries.

47

Chapter 2 – A chance for artists and craftsmen…

After the 5  elements of Chapter  1, 13  others appear in Chapter  2, among which 6 transition metals (like Fe), 5 so-called poor metals (like Pb), 1 metalloid (Sb) and one non-metal (S). 1

18

1

2

H

hydrogen

2

13 atomic number

4

3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium

K

37

Rb

rubidium

boron

12

13

Mg

magnesium

Ca

calcium

Al

3 21

Sc

scandium

38

39

strontium

yttrium

Sr

Y

Ba Ra

radium

4 22

23 vanadium

Ti 40

Zr

zirconium

Hf

hafnium 104 actinide

5

titanium

72

lanthanide

barium 88

87

francium

B

name

beryllium

56

55

Cs

caesium

5

symbol

Be

20

19 potassium

Fr

He

Rf

rutherfordium 57

La

lanthanum 89

Ac

actinium

V

41

Nb

niobium 73

Ta

tantalum 105

Db

dubnium 58

Ce

cerium 90

Th

thorium

6 24

Cr

chromium 42

Mo

7

74

W

106

Sg

seaborgium 59

Pr

26

25

Mn

Fe

manganese 43

Tc

molybdenum technetium

tungsten

8

75

Re

rhenium 107

Bh

bohrium 60

Nd

iron 44

Ru

ruthenium

91

92 uranium

Pa

U

27

108

61

Pm 93

Np

neptunium

46

palladium

silver silver

Pd

7878

Ir

109

Ag Ag 79 79

PtPt

Au Au

Ds

Rg

platinum platinum 110

Mt

11 29 29 Cu

Cu copper copper 47 47

45

Rh 77

Hs

Ni

nickel

rhodium

iridium

hassium

28

Co

76

Os

10

cobalt

osmium

praseodymium neodymium promethium

protactinium

9

gold gold 111

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium 62

63

Sm

samarium

Eu

europium

94

Pu

95

plutonium

Am

americium

➜ The

64

Gd

gadolinium 96

Cm curium

1230 30 Zn

aluminium

zinc 4848

gallium

cadmium cadmium

Znzinc

Cd Cd 8080

Hg Hg

mercury mercury 112

Cn

copernicium 65

Tb

terbium 97

Bk

berkelium

31

Ga

14 6

C

carbon

15 7

N

nitrogen

16 8

O

oxygen

14

15

16 16

silicon

phosphorus

sulphur sulphur

Si 32

Ge

P

33

As

S

34

Se

17 9

17

49

52

53

tin tin

antimony antimony

tellurium

iodine

81

Tl

thallium

82 82

Pb Pb

83

Bi

84

Po

bromine

85

113

115

116

117

nihonium

flerovium

moscovium

livermorium

tennessine

66

Dy

dysprosium 98

Cf

67

Ho

holmium 99

Es

californium einsteinium

Mc 68

Er

erbium 100

Fm

fermium

Lv 69

Tm

thulium 101

Md

mendelevium

54

Xe

xenon 86

At

bismuth

Fl

36

Kr

krypton

I

lead lead 114

Nh

polonium

18

Ar

argon

35

Br

indium

Te

neon

Cl

selenium

Sb Sb

Ne

chlorine

arsenic 51 51

Sn Sn

10

F

fluorine

germanium 50 50

In

helium

Rn

astatine

Ts

radon 118

Og

oganesson

70

Yb

ytterbium

71

Lu

lutetium

102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

Brussels Atomium, a work of art and technical feat at the same time, is a hymn to scientific progress in the service of humanity. It is an allegory of the metal, of iron (Fe) and its crystalline structure, of the atoms and the chemical elements in all their universality. The Atomium was built on the occasion of the 1958 Universal Exhibition. © www.atomium.be / ADAGP, Paris, 2020.

48

Lr

CHAPTER

Gods, myths and legends

3

Where we plunge in mythology and astronomy 1 About gods and planets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

2 Heaven or hell?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

3 Prometheus and hidden earths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

4 Helen of Troy and sugars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

5 Diabolical dwarves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

68

6 Fear of the werewolf. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

72

7 Vanadis and Thor, day and night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

8 The oracles of Amun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

MY GOD, WHAT A FAMILY! In the Greco-Latin genealogy that follows, we find CHAOS, whose name was used to form the word gas, his grandson ÆTHER, as the personification of the ether, as well as part of his prestigious descendants over five generations. CHAOS (Primordial emptiness) Nyx (Night)

Gaïa/Tellus (Earth)

1 2

Ouranos/Uranus (Sky) ÆTHER Helios/Sun

3

Hera/Juno

Selene/Moon Zeus/Jupiter Demeter/Ceres

4 Hephaestus/Vulcan 4 Hermes/Mercury 5

Cronos/Saturn (a Titan)

Hyperion (a Titan)

3

Aphrodite/Venus

Ares/Mars

Pontos (Sea)

Iapetus (a Titan)

Thaumas

Prometheus

Iris

Hades/Pluto Poseidon/Neptune

Pallas Athena/Minerva

Tantalus

Helena

Niobe

There are variations in the legends. Thus, Aphrodite/Venus is sometimes presented as a Zeus’ daughter, and is considered here to have been born of the sea foam fertilized by Ouranos. From her stay in Cyprus comes her nickname Cypris, from the Latin Cyprus, hence also in Latin cuprum, the name of copper, a metal abundant in Cyprus and associated with the planet Venus. It all makes sense.

➜ The birth of Venus,

circa 1484/1485 by Botticelli.

50

The amazing history of element names

Greco-Latin mythology in astronomy… The Sun, the Moon and the 5 planets identified at the time form a set of 7 celestial bodies referred to herein after as stars, which were qualified in Greek as planêtes, from adjective planêtos, “wandering”, because they are mobile in relation to the fixed constellations of the sky. This particularity appeared so important to the Ancients that they gave these stars the names of mythological deities of the first importance (in red on the left): Jupiter sitting on his throne between his father Saturn and his children Mercury and Mars, as well as Venus. And to name the new planet identified in 1781, one naturally called upon Uranus, the father of Saturn. Finally, the last two planets discovered, Neptune and Pluto, were dedicated to Jupiter’s brothers, without forgetting the two large asteroids, Ceres and Pallas. ... and in alchemy then chemistry The Ancients and then the alchemists associated the 7 non-fixed stars they observed with the 7 metals they knew, but without giving them the names of the stars, except for mercury lately, since this liquid metal was long-called quicksilver. Then in modern times, chemists willingly named chemical elements from mythology, passing, or not, via astronomy. It was the German chemist Martin Klaproth who initiated this process in 1792 by naming uranium after the newly discovered planet Uranus. In the genealogy opposite, 14 names are written in bold type and can be guessed under the names of 14 chemical elements. These “deity-element” couples will be discussed in the following pages, but not the Helios-helium couple, because it is very particular and unrelated to mythology: this element was discovered in the Sun, as we will see later in Ch. 6 (on noble gases). As well as other mythologies Names of Greek and/or Latin origin are certainly the most numerous in the vocabulary of chemistry, but there are also names inspired by Germanic and Scandinavian tales and legends. We can delve even further into the mists of time if we consider the name of ammonia, which refers to the god Amun of Ancient Egypt. So, let’s now explore without further delay these myths and legends! 51

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

1

About gods and planets uranium (U), neptunium (Np), plutonium (Pu), tellurium (Te), selenium (Se), cerium (Ce), palladium (Pd) and bismuth (Bi)

In 1792, the German pharmacist and chemist Martin Klaproth published a dissertation beginning: “The ancient philosophers, forewarned that our globe was the centre of the Universe, [...] were struck by the numerical ratio they found between the seven metals they knew, & the seven planets that existed according to their hypothesis”1. It is from this historical reminder that the author justified, as we shall see, the very name of uranium.

➜ Martin

Klaproth (1743-1817).

z The 7 metals of antiquity Indeed, the Ancients, then the alchemists, cultivated a kind of numerology based on the number 7, associating the 7 metals known since time immemorial with the 7  non-fixed stars (Sun, Moon and 5  planets identified at the time), themselves bearing the names of 7 Greco-Latin mythological deities. After some hesitation for certain planets2 , the following correspondences became obvious: the Sun and the brightness of gold, the Moon and its silver light, the red of Mars and the iron used for war, the yellow of Venus and of a mirror made of copper (a metal abundant in Cyprus, the island of Venus), the white of Jupiter, of lightning and of tin, the pallor of Saturn the slowness of which (orbiting the Sun in 30 years) is in harmony with the gravity of lead and, on the contrary, the velocity of Mercury (orbiting the Sun in 1. Klaproth, Martin, Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres, Berlin, 1792, p. 172. 2. Halleux, Robert, Le problème des métaux dans la science antique, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1974, 252 p., p. 154. 52

About gods and planets

3 months) which evokes the fluidity of mercury (formerly quicksilver) and the agility of traders. 3 % 5 0

Jupiter 8 Tin Iron Mars 7 Mercury Mercury 6 Copper Venus Gold

Sun

Silver

Moon

Lead

Saturn

➜ Alchemist’s

Table.

z And ten more... In fact, as early as antiquity, humans used metals other than the 7 primitive ones, but without being able to identify them, most often in composition in various minerals. Only these 7 metals were known as such, and they remained so... until the end of the Middle Ages, when zinc and antimony appeared, and above all in the 18th century, when platinum, bismuth, cobalt, nickel, manganese, molybdenum and tungsten were all discovered. To these must be added arsenic, and we arrive at the 17 “simple metallic substances” in Lavoisier’s 1789 table. Noting in 1792 that 17 metals were already known, Klaproth wrote, not without humour, that “as the catalogue of the planets was not increased in size, the new metals were deprived of these pompous denominations borrowed from the planetary system, & reduced to names imposed by chance, or by obscure miners”. He was surely thinking of the “obscure miners” of the cobalt and nickel mines which are to be found later in this chapter (Section 5). As for “chance”, it could be attributed to names such as zinc or antimony, the etymologies of which are obscure to say the least, and even more so to the name bismuth, which appeared in the 15th century in German, Wismut, of completely unknown origin (hence also Bismut in German, bismuth in English and French, finally bismuto in Spanish).

z Uranus and uranium Klaproth studied pitchblende, a mineral already used in ceramics but of unknown structure. He showed that this mineral was the oxide of a new metal, which he named in 1792 in these terms: “I take advantage of the indisputable rights of any inventor, & I give this new metal the name 53

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

Uranium, or Urane, borrowed from the planet Urane, the discovery of which is also recent”. Indeed, in 1781, the German-English astronomer Herschel discovered the planet Uranus (first Urane), a planet that others had seen before, but that they had taken for a fixed star because its displacement is very slow (orbiting the Sun in 84  years). Uranus logically came after Jupiter and Saturn, since Uranus is the father of Saturn and the grandfather of Jupiter. By explicitly following the ancient tradition, Klaproth associated the last identified metal with the brand new planet, thus adding the Uranus-uranium pair to the 7 ”star-metal” pairs of antiquity. In the same spirit, in 1798 he gave its name to tellurium from Tellus, the Latin name of the goddess Earth. Indeed, since the Earth was no longer the centre of the Universe, it could not remain the only planet without a correspondent, even if, in this case, tellurium, strictly speaking, is considered a metalloid. Moreover, the first two dwarf planets, or asteroids, Ceres and Pallas, were detected in 1801 and 1802. Their names inspired those of the two metals identified shortly afterwards, cerium by Klaproth himself, and palladium (from the Latin Pallas, Palladis) by the English physicist and chemist Wollaston.

z Transuranian planets and transuranide metals Finally, two other planets were discovered later, and named according to the mythological tradition: in 1846, Neptune, found thanks to the precise calculations of Le Verrier, and in 1930 Pluto (eventually declassified as a dwarf planet in 2006). It took longer this time to name the metals neptunium and plutonium. It happened in the United States, during the work of nuclear physics in the 1940s, from the names of the planets, and also by analogy between two filiations: that of Uranus, the grandfather of Neptune and Pluto, and that of uranium (sometimes one refers to father nucleus and son nucleus), giving neptunium and plutonium by successive disintegrations of the type below, where the atoms appear in the order of the planets: 238 92

U + neutron

239 92

U

β- Ray

54

239 93

Np

β- Ray

239 94

Pu

About gods and planets

z Lunar Epilogue The Sun, Moon and planets therefore each have an associated metal (or metalloid for the Earth), and the Moon is even favoured because, in addition to silver, it has a non-metal, selenium, so named by Berzelius in 1818 from the Greek name, Selênê, of the goddess Moon, because of the extreme proximity of this element to tellurium. Here we can admire a beautiful symbolic convergence, over three millennia, between mythology, astronomy and chemistry, which is well reflected in the etymology of the names of uranium and the first transuranides.

➜ Metals

associated with stars since antiquity, and those named after stars from 1792 onwards. Helium does not appear, because the logic of its name is quite different, a logic that is, moreover, purely astrophysical.

PLUTO AND THE FAMOUS DOG PLUTO Mickey’s companion dog was named Pluto by Walt Disney in 1930 to celebrate the discovery of Pluto by American astronomers. Note that in English, the planet Pluto is called like the dog, Pluto, in relation with the god Pluto, from Latin Pluto, Plutonis. On the contrary, in French we distinguish between Pluto the dog, and Pluton, the planet and the god of the Underworld, whose dog, by the way, was Cerberus...

55

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

2

Heaven or hell? titanium (Ti), zirconium (Zr), tantalum (Ta), niobium (Nb), iridium (Ir) and columbite

As we have just seen, the Ancients, then the alchemists, associated metals with the stars, themselves dedicated to the deities: thus, mercury designates simultaneously the metal, the planet and the god. And in 1792, the German chemist Klaproth revived this tradition by naming, as we saw, uranium in reference to the planet Uranus, itself dedicated to the god of Heaven. But some metal names are directly inspired by Greco-Latin mythology, without the intervention of a star, and it is yet again Klaproth who gave the example with titanium.

z A story of Titans In 1795, Klaproth indeed discovered another metal, which he named titanium, specifying that this name was “as for uranium, inspired by mythology”: a natural association of ideas because the Titans are sons of Uranus. There are six of them, and the youngest Titan is Saturn, the father of Jupiter (or Zeus). By the way, isn’t the largest satellite of the planet Saturn called Titan? Indeed it is, but this name only dates back to 1847, long after Klaproth chose Titanium. In any case, Klaproth did an enormous amount of work in chemistry, a titanic task if we dare say so. Indeed in addition to uranium, tellurium, cerium and titanium, Klaproth also identified zirconium for the first time in 1789 from a Ceylon zircon. It is from the name of this mineral (ZrSiO4), in German, Zircon, that zirconium is derived.

z From the son of Zeus to the bird In 1802, the Swedish chemist Ekeberg discovered a new metal in a mineral from Sweden, about which he wrote: “Taking advantage of the 56

Heaven or hell?

custom that admits mythological names, and to express the impotence of the new metal to saturate itself with the acids in which it is immersed, I have applied to it the name of tantalium”, eventually tantalum in English. The impossibility for this metal to react with acids reminded him of the ➜ The temptation of Tantalus impossibility of feeding for Tantalus, in the Tartar, in the Underworld. Engraving Bernard Picart, The Temple of that son of Zeus who, having gravely the Muses (1733). offended the gods, was condemned to eternal hunger and thirst: plunged up to his neck in the water of Tartarus, in the Underworld, he could neither drink because the water was running from his mouth, nor eat because as soon as he tried to pick a fruit, the wind would take it away from him. However, Ekeberg was not the first to be inspired by the torture of Tantalus (name borrowed from Latin). Indeed, in 1750, an ornithologist had named tantalus an American kind of stork, which can be seen walking in the water, constantly plunging its beak into it, as if it could never be satisfied. In 1766, Linnaeus adopted the genus name Tantalus for this bird, hence its name in French, tantale. Was Ekeberg, an academic in Uppsala, near Stockholm, inspired by the name of the bird established by the illustrious Linnaeus, a professor before him in Uppsala?

➜ Wood stork (today Mycteria americana, which Linnaeus classified

in the genus Tantalus).

Wikipedia, Creative Commons, cc-by-sa-2.0, Bernard DUPONT. 57

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

z The hidden daughter of Tantalus In 1801, the English chemist Hatchett identified a new metal from a North American mineral that he named columbium, from Columbia, the poetic name of America. But then confusion arose between this columbium and Ekeberg’s tantalum, because the two metals had similar properties. It was even thought that perhaps they were one and then, by isolating the metals, the German chemist Heinrich Rose showed in 1844 that Ekeberg’s tantalum actually contained another metal, which he named niobium, after Niobe, Tantalus’ daughter, and which he identified... with columbium. The confusion persisted because the same metal was for a long time called columbium in the United States and niobium in Europe, and it was in 1950 that the scientific community decided in favour of niobium. From columbium comes columbite, the name of the mineral (Fe,Mn).(Nb,Ta)2.O6, where tantalum and niobium are found in variable proportions.

z Iridescent epilogue In 1804, the American chemist Tennant discovered another metal, characterized by the diversity of colours of its salts. Taking his inspiration from Iris (Iris, Iridos in Greek), the messenger of the gods, personification of the rainbow, he named this metal iridium. In Greek, iris, iridos already designated the rainbow, or the iris flower (cf. Theophrastus), or the iris of the eye (cf. Galen). In English: iridescent, “rainbow coloured”, iridaceous, “plant of the family of iris”, iridic, or iridal, “relative to iris of the eye”, have a connection with iridic, “which contains iridium”, but only through Greek mythology. English

French

Italian

Spanish

German

titanium

titane

titanio

titanio

Titan

tantalum

tantale

tantalio

tantalio

Tantal

niobium

niobium

niobio

niobio

Niob

iridium

iridium

iridio

iridio

Iridium

58

Heaven or hell?

➜ Among

the iris flowers, the messenger of the gods and personification of the rainbow, Iris provides the link between Heaven and Earth. Artxork © Josephine Wall.

59

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

3

Prometheus and hidden earths cerium (Ce), lanthanum (La), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), praseodymium(Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm) and technetium (Tc)

The 17 rare earths form a sort of right angle in the periodic classification: scandium, yttrium and lanthanum in column 3, and the 15 lanthanides in line 6, from lanthanum, cerium to lutetium. Column 3 21

Sc

scandium 39

Y

Line 6

yttrium 57

La

lanthanum

58

Ce

cerium

59

Pr

60

Nd

61

Pm

praseodymium neodymium prometheum

62

Sm

samarium

63

Eu

europium

64

Gd

gadolinium

65

Tb

terbium

66

Dy

dysprosium

67

Ho

holmium

68

Er

erbium

69

Tm

thulium

70

Yb

ytterbium

71

Lu

lutetium

15 lanthanides ➜ The

17 rare earths, including 9 from the yttrium series (in red) and 8 from the cerium series (in blue).

A stone found at Ytterby, near Stockholm, provided the rare earths of the yttrium series, but it was from another stone, found at Bastnäs in inland Sweden, that the second rare earth series, the cerium series, was discovered. Two neighbouring geographical origins in Sweden, but very distant names, because yttrium is attached to its small village of Ytterby, as we will see in Ch. 4, Section 1, while the cerium name hides several hundred millions kilometres away from the Earth!

z Cerium, an astronomical and mythological name The “heavy stone of Bastnäs” was studied by several teams, including those of the German chemist Klaproth and the Swedish chemist Berzelius, who discovered a new metal to which, in 1804, they “gave the name cerium, after the planet (sic) of Ceres”. The latter had indeed just been 60

Prometheus and hidden earths

discovered and dedicated to the Roman goddess of fertility and harvest. Klaproth could not but approve of this choice, he who had reconnected in 1792 with the metal-star relations of the ancient tradition. Later on, Berzelius dedicated the vanadium to Vanadis, sometimes called the Ceres of the Scandinavians (cf. Section 7).

➜ The

Ceres asteroid and the Roman goddess.

Wikipedia, cc-by-sa-3.0, Borghese Collection; purchase, 1807.

z Hidden in cerium, lanthanum and its twin In 1839, the Swedish chemist Mosander discovered a “new metal that only slightly changes the properties of cerium, and in which it is virtually hidden”. Hence the name lanthanum, from the Greek verb lanthanein, “to be hidden”. An idea that may have inspired Ramsay in 1898 to name krypton, from the Greek kruptein, “to hide”: two ways of saying “hidden” in Greek, first to designate a rare earth hidden in cerium, then a rare gas hidden in argon. Mosander showed that cerium hid yet another metal, which he named in 1842 didymium, from the Greek didumos, “twin”, the twin of lanthanum, so to speak. But it soon became clear that this didymium itself was not a simple element...

z A twin can hide other siblings... Some didymium was also found in an ore from the southern Urals, samarskite, named after the Russian mining engineer SamarskyBykhovets. In this didymium, the French chemist Lecoq de Boisbaudran detected by spectroscopy in 1879 a metal that he named samarium, 61

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

after  samarskite, then a second metal that turned out to be the one assumed and provisionally named Yα in 1880 by the Swiss chemist Marignac. Doubts having been dispelled, Boisbaudran and Marignac named this metal gadolinium in 1886, after the Finnish mineralogist Gadolin, the pioneer of rare earths (cf. Ch. 4, Section 1). And finally, the Austrian chemist Auer von Welsbach proved that this didymium itself was in fact made up of two neighbouring, if not twin, metals. In an 1886 Bulletin de la Société Chimique de France, he explained that he had come up with “first green salt and then pink salt, which correspond to the two elements of didymium, praseodymium and neodymium“. These are twins with rather strange names, where the element -dymium serves as a suffix, associated on the one hand with praseo- from the Greek prason, “leek”, prasinos, “soft green like leek”, and, on the other hand, with neo-, neos, “new”. But why neo-? Why not “rhododymium”, by symmetry, for the pink salt metal? It should be noted here that Auer von Welsbach also discovered the possibility of doping the light emitted by a gas burner with rare earth oxides; hence his invention of the Auer burner, a lamp very much in vogue in the Belle Époque, a sophistication of the Bunsen burner, developed by the German chemist Bunsen, for whom Auer worked incidentally.

➜ Art

Deco

Advertising for Then the French chemist Demarçay identified a metal the Auer burner. in 1901 in the samarium ore that he named europium: a unifying name for work carried out in several countries, from Sweden to the Urals, continental Europe’s natural eastern frontier.

z Promethean epilogue However, the story did not end with europium, as elements 57, 58, 59, 60 and 62, 63, 64 had been discovered, but element 61 was still missing. This metal is the rarest of the rare earths, since all its isotopes are radioactive and relatively short-lived. It wasn’t until 1945 that element 61 62

➜ Prometheus,

punished, chained with the eagle.

Prometheus and hidden earths

was identified using the Oak Ridge nuclear reactor (Tennessee), then run by the American chemist Coryell. And history records that Coryell’s wife, Grace, came up with the idea in 1948 to name this new element promethium, because those who sought to control nuclear energy reminded her of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods of Olympus. Prometheus also taught men technique (in Greek tekhnê), and in 1937 technetium was named from the Greek tekhnêtos, “artificial”, the element 43 detected in the irradiated molybdenum and unknown in nature at the time. The elements technetium 43 and promethium 61 were therefore the only two elements, among the first 92, unknown in nature. Technetium has since been found in trace amounts (in a uranium ore), but promethium has not been found. Promethium, the last rare earth identified, is therefore the only one of the first 92 elements that has never been found on Earth. It is, dare we say it, an extremely rare earth, and it has indeed been stolen, if not from the gods, then at least beyond the Earth’s condition.

➜ Ceres,

the Roman goddess of fertility and the harvest. Hence the name cereal. Did it take a goddess to harvest rare earths?

63

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

4

Helen of Troy and sugars inulin and insulin

Inulin occupies a special place among the slow-release sugars (polysaccharides) of natural origin. It was discovered in 1804 by the German pharmacologist Valentin Rose Junior, from the roots of a plant renowned since antiquity for its medicinal virtues, the elecampane. The term inulin comes from the Latin name of this plant, itself borrowed from the Greek.

➜ The

elecampane (Inula helenium) also called horseheal, is a widespread plant species in the sunflower family; it reaches a height of three metres. Inulin (right) is a fructose polymer..

z A plant rooted... in mythology Theophrastus called elecampane Chiron’s panacea in Greek, which refers twice to mythology and medicine. Indeed, Chiron (from the Greek kheir, “hand”, cf. Greek kheirourgos, Latin chirurgus, French chirurgien, English surgeon, coming from Old French serurgien) was the omniscient Centaur, therefore also a physician and surgeon: he was the tutor of Asclepius, who himself became the god of medicine, whose daughter 64

Helen of Troy and sugars

Panacea (from the Greek pan, “everything”, and akesis, “healing”) cured all ills, hence the panacea in everyday language. Later on, Dioscorides gave to the same elecampane another Greek name, helenion, again recalling a mythological character, this time Helen (Greek Helenê), whose abduction provoked the Trojan War. But what does this have to do with the most beautiful woman of antiquity, after Aphrodite? The answer lies in a mixture of natural sciences and legends. During her return from Troy, the beautiful Helen had to be taken to the island of Pharos to escape the advances of the king of Egypt. But Pharos, near the Nile delta, was infested with snakes, so Helen had to be given a plant that cured their bites, a plant called helenion, “Helen’s herb”. A variation of the legend states that this plant was born on the island from Helen’s very tears. However, by analogy, a few other plants supposed to cure snake bites have also been named in Greek helenion, such as the elecampane, since, according to Theophrastus, “it is used against vipers”.3 ➜ Long

after the passage of Helen, Alexandria was created opposite the island of Pharos, on which the seventh wonder of the world was erected, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, named after the island, from which the word phare, “lighthouse, headlight”, in French finally comes from.

z From Helen to inulin, a linguistic recombination? The Greek helenion was borrowed by Latin, evolving towards various names of the elecampane: from the form elena comes its English name, elecampane (from ele(na) campana), then from elna comes aunée in French, and ella becomes Alant in German. But the surprise comes from its Latin name inula, used by Pliny the Elder, which is also linked to helenion, assuming that the consonants /l/ and /n/ were exchanged in evolution. Such an exchange is perfectly recorded by the linguists under the name metathesis, a name familiar to chemists who also apply it, but to an exchange of atomic positions on a molecule during a reaction. 3.  Amigues, Suzanne, Théophraste, Recherche sur les plantes, À l’origine de la botanique, Belin, Paris, 2010, 414 p., p. 355. 65

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

In any case, in 1753, Linnaeus named the elecampane Inula helenium, and from the genus name Inula derives inulin, in French inuline, in Spanish inulina, in German Inulin...

z From inulin to inSulin Inulin is now a prebiotic, which is of interest in certain diets, for example in the case of diabetes. But in the latter case, the more important role of insulin is better known, the name of which differs incidentally from inulin only by the addition of a letter: inulin + s = insulin. Insulin was named in 1909 from the Latin insula, “island, islet”, because it was found that this protein4 was secreted by cells of the pancreas grouped together in cellular clusters known (in 1905) as “islets of Langerhans”, after the name of their discoverer.

z Island epilogue Insulin is certainly not, like inulin, rich in references to antiquity, but it is nevertheless in Latin, once again, that its name comes directly from: insulin has joined the great family of words such as insularity, peninsula, to insulate, to isolate, island, which descend from the Latin insula, “island”. With inulin and one letter less, everything was different and one evoked the beautiful Helen despairing on an island in the Mediterranean... Another island story, one would say, but we won’t dwell on what is merely a coincidence.

4. From the Greek prôtos, “first”, a name suggested by Berzelius in 1838. See insulin on p. 155. 66

Helen of Troy and sugars

➜ Helen

of Troy, who gave the name helenion to elecampane.

67

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

5

Diabolical dwarves nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co) and arsenic (As)

In etymological dictionaries, the name nickel refers to the name cobalt, and vice versa. In fact, these two metals, located side by side just before copper in the Periodic Table, have names of the same origin, linked to Germanic mythology. 24

Cr

chromium

25

Mn

manganese

26

Fe iron

27 27

Co Co

cobalt cobalt

28 28

29

Ni Ni

nickel nickel

Cu

copper

30

Zn zinc

31

Ga

gallium

32

Ge

germanium

33

As

arsenic

➜ Like

two inseparable brothers, yet surprisingly, nickel and cobalt have a common origin.

It is better to start with cobalt, as its history is the elder of the two.

z An enigmatic metal and evil minerals The history of cobalt begins with the history of mineral pigments, which dates back to the earliest antiquity. Already in Ancient Egypt, a glass of an intense blue colour was obtained thanks to a special pigment, which was later called cobalt blue because it was based on this metal that had remained unknown for a long time.

➜ Death

mask of Tutankhamun, who died about 1325 BC. The blue bands are made of cobaltcoloured glass.

This pigment (in which cobalt remained incognito) continued to be used in stained-glass art in the Middle Ages for example, but became more important with the mining of ores discovered in the 15th century in Europe, especially in Saxony and Bohemia. The pigment was then obtained by roasting these ores, and it was called saffre, today saffron, a name linked to that of a blue stone, sapphire (from its Greek name, sappheiros). However, German miners encountered difficulties of all 68

Diabolical dwarves

kinds. First of all they tried, in vain, to extract copper from these ores, this copper well-known since antiquity as a material and even as a base for pigments, such as Egyptian blue (of a different use than cobalt blue). In addition, miners suffered serious poisoning due to the fumes given off by the roasting of the ores: which is no wonder, knowing that they were sulphides or arsenides. For all these reasons, the miners hated these ores, to which they gave the German name Kobold, of the little goblins of German mythology (in English, kobold). The kobolds, gently teasing and mischievous in everyday life, frequented the world of underground mining. Noteworthy, the famous dwarves of Snow White were nice kobolds. But some others could become evil and dangerous in these mines; they were accused of destroying the work of the miners and causing them all sorts of trouble.

➜ Snow

White’s 7 dwarves (the number 7 again!) were nice kobolds who frequented their mines, looking for hidden copper? For the time being... it’s Dopey who’s hiding...

The Swedish chemist Georg Brandt finally identified the phantom metal in 1735 and gave it the same name as that of the ore, in Swedish kobolt, which is used in all languages: Kobalt in German, cobalt in English and French, cobalto in Spanish... And the curse of cobalt continued with the curse of nickel.

z A real fake copper ore Among all the ores discovered from the 15th century onwards in Europe, there was one with red reflections really suggesting that it contained copper for sure. But it was once again impossible to get even a small amount of this metal, and the roasting of the ore still gave off toxic fumes. And with good reason: it was actually nickel arsenide (NiAs), now called nickeline. The miners felt once again harassed by a kobold, to whom they gave, as was customary, a little affectionate nickname, as if to coax him: Nickel, short for German Nikolaus. They even named 69

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

this ore Kupfer-Nickel, from the German Kupfer, “copper”, i.e., “little copper Nicholas”, because it pretends to contain copper, but does not give any, worse still, it poisons you. The Swedish chemist Axel Frederik Cronstedt finally identified the unknown metal in 1751 and, obviously inspired by the name cobalt, he named it nickel, which is used as such in many languages (níquel in Spanish). By a curious twist and coincidence, the German name Kupfernickel is still used today, but to designate cupronickel the real alloy between copper and nickel (also cupronickel in French), well-known in hard, press-stamped coins and medals.

z Epilogue: in cauda venenum... The name nickel, derived from Germanic mythology, seems independent of Greco-Latin antiquity, so present in all the vocabulary of chemistry... at least at first glance, because the name Nicholas goes back to the Greek Nikolaos, from the Greek nikê, “victory”, and laos, “army, crowd, people”. Finally, it should be noted that Brandt also identified and named alongside cobalt the element arsenic, whereas until then the name arsenic had been used to designate various toxic compounds containing sulphur and/or arsenic. He definitely killed two birds with one stone, so to speak. ARSENIC AND ITS POPULAR ETYMOLOGY The name arsenic comes from the late Latin arsenicum, itself from the classical Latin arrhenicum, borrowed from the Greek arrenikon or arsenikon, which in Aristotle refers to the yellow arsenic, or orpiment (As2S3), reputed to have the colour of gold. The Greek is itself a borrowing from a Persian word meaning “colour of gold”. In fact, all these words have been applied to toxic compounds of arsenic or sulphur, or both, and even to other poisons. In addition, the Greek word arsên (or arrên) is an ancient term meaning “male”, which is related by popular etymology to arsenikon, where the potency of a poison is associated with a male temperament. And it is found in late Greek, as a derivative of arsên, “male”, the adjective arsenikos, “male, masculine”, which wrongly suggests that arsenic means “male” according to its etymology.

70

Diabolical dwarves

➜ Kobold,

the creature from German folklore that caused the accidents and all sorts of troubles in mines. Jean-Noël Lafargue.

71

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

6

Fear of the werewolf tungsten (W), wolframite and scheelite

The iron and manganese tungstate is called in English wolframite, and in French wolframite or wolfram, which is a misnomer, or ”faux ami”, as the French say, because in German Wolfram does not designate this ore, but tungsten itself: the same metal under two very different names, in English tungsten and in German Wolfram, where one wonders why the name of the wolf appears, or the German first name Wolfram. But then, why the wolf? First of all, the German mineralogist Agricola in the 16th century points out that wolfram looks like a tin ore without containing tin. Later, the Swedish chemist Wallerius took up this statement and it was deduced that the tin had been devoured... by a wolf! A metaphor typical of the alchemists’ esoteric language, assimilating for example antimony to the grey wolf... gobbling up the gold. What’s more, according to Wallerius, wolfram could also be mistaken for antimony ore. Finally, the melting of wolfram produced blackish soot that clogged the metallurgical furnaces, like the tracks of an evil wolf. The name wolfram thus refers to the image of the wicked wolf, a little like, in another field, the name of the hop in Pliny the Elder is lupus, because the hop, exhausting the soil and suffocating neighbouring plants, would be akin to a wolf vis-à-vis other plants. ➜ Lupulus beer logo. Latin lupulus, diminutive

On the other hand, according to Wallerius, the Latin Spuma lupi, synonymous with Wolfram,

of lupus, means both “(wolf) cub” and “hop”, which causes the neighbouring plants to wither away. © “Brasserie les 3 Fourquets » – www.lupulus.be.

72

Fear of the werewolf

suggests that the element -ram is a derivative of an old German name, Rahm, “dirt”. Etymologically, wolfram, in mineralogy, means “wolf slime”. But let’s get back to the question of the first name Wolfram.

➜ Excerpt from p. 346 of Wallerius’ Treatise on Mineralogy, 1750.

z Man is also a wolf... Let’s specify first of all that this first name existed well before the treaties of mineralogy. For example, Saint Wulfran was bishop of Sens (France) in the 7th century and Wolfram von Eschenbach was a great German poet at the end of the 12th century. In fact, Wolfram is one of the many baptismal names, generally of Frankish origin, based on two Germanic roots. Thus, Wolfram is based on wulf, “wolf”, and hram, “raven”, its element -ram being therefore not the same as that of the ore name. As for the wolf, it is present in both cases, but with opposite connotations, negative in (al)chemical terms, and positive in the names of men: the name Wolf itself exists, the wolf being seen as a hero, a valiant warrior, and cautious in his steps (à pas de loup in French), which is evoked by the first name Wolfgang (Gang, “gait”). Wolfram combines here the qualities of the raven (deified in Scandinavian mythology) and those of the wolf: a double reference to mythical animals which can also be seen in Arnolphe (arn, “eagle”, + wulf) or Bernolf (bern, “bear”, + wulf). And the wolf also appears in Rudolf (hrod, “glory”, + wulf), Raoul (rad, “council”, + wulf) or... Adolphe (adal, “noble”, + wulf). Did the first name finally play a role in the formation of Wolfram, the ore? One thing is certain: the first (al)chemists who articulated this name could not have been unaware of it. Moreover, it is indeed the form Wolfram which appears immediately in the mineralogical texts, and not Wolfrahm for example, which does not seem to be attested. It 73

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

is therefore likely that the first name influenced the formation of the ore name. Wasn’t it basically a way of giving a human name to an ore that caused problems, a bit like Nickel (= little Nicholas), as if Wolfram had also been a kobold (see previous section)?

z From heavy ore to new metal It was only in 1779 that the presence of an unknown metal in wolfram was suspected by the English chemist Peter Woulfe, whose name was certainly predestined! However, in 1781, the Swedish chemist Scheele identified, without isolating it, a new metal in another ore, calcium tungstate, called at that time in Swedish tungsten (from tung, “heavy”, and sten, “stone”), because of its very high density, viz., 6. Then Scheele gave the same name in Swedish, tungsten, to this new metal. Two years later, finally, the Spanish chemist Juan José d’Elhúyar, with the help of his brother Fausto, studied the wolfram again and extracted a metal from it, which turned out to be the same as Scheele’s, and they wrote: “We will give this new metal the name Volfran, taking it from the mineral from which we have extracted it”.

z Obstinate epilogue

➜ Tungsten

filament will disappear, superseded by LEDs.

For a long time, names based on the German Wolfram and the Swedish tungsten coexisted, as did the chemical symbols W and Tu. Until around 1950, there were still debates between the “proWolfram” and “protungsten”. The tendency was to prefer Wolfram, but the Anglo-Saxon researchers, considering the mass of existing publications with tungsten in English, did not agree to change. Today, the majority is siding with Wolfram, and the W symbol is accepted by all, but there are notable exceptions such as tungsten, as well as tungstène in French... 74

Fear of the werewolf Chemical formula

English

French

Spanish

German

Swedish

W

tungsten

tungstène

wolframio

Wolfram

volfram

(Fe,Mn) WO4

wolframite

wolfram(ite)

wolframita

Wolframit

volframit

CaWO4

scheelite

scheelite

scheelita

Scheelit

scheelit

➜ Wolfram

von Eschenbach (circa 1170-1220), born in Eschenbach (meaning “river of ash trees”), now Wolfram-Eschenbach in Bavaria, is one of the major epic poets of the Middle Ages. Was his first name given to tungsten ore by the miners in 18th century, as they did for nickel (named little Nicholas)? Wikipedia, licence cc-by-sa-2.0, Simon Koopmann. 75

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

7

Vanadis and Thor, day and night vanadium (V), thorium (Th), chromium (Cr) and rhodium (Rh)

The discovery of vanadium is a story full of twists and turns, that takes us into Scandinavian mythology, certainly less present than the Greek or Latin references in the names of chemistry.

z A misunderstood discovery in Mexico In 1801, however, the story begins in Mexico City, where the mineralogist del Río announced the discovery of a new metal in an ore from Mexico. Nevertheless, the scientific community considered that the metal in question was only impure chromium. In fact, del Río was right. It was later understood that he had indeed found vanadium, located in the classification right next to the chromium that Vauquelin had just identified, and named in 1798 from the Greek khrôma, “colour”, because of its variously coloured salts. The metal that del Río rightly thought he had found produced intense red salts, hence the name erythronium, from the Greek eruthros, “red”, which he had proposed in vain. ➜ Spanish

mineralogist Andrés Manuel del Río (1764-1849) attended mining schools in Spain and Germany, got to know Humboldt and worked with Lavoisier before moving to New Spain (which became Mexico in 1821). He was the unfortunate discoverer ➜ Vanadinite, Pb5(VO4)3Cl. of vanadium.

The English chemist Wollaston was luckier in 1805 when he proposed rhodium, from the Greek rhodon, “pink”, because of the pink colour of its salts in solution. 76

Vanadis and Thor, day and night

z Rediscovery in Sweden Nearly thirty years later, the Swedish chemist and mineralogist Nils Gabriel Sefström, examining “a species of iron remarkable for its extreme softness”, showed that a new element was responsible for this property, thus rediscovering vanadium. Sefström was then working with his former professor, Berzelius, who wrote in 1830: “The name of the substance has not yet been definitively fixed. We provisionally call it vanadium, from Vanadis, the name of a Scandinavian deity“. Berzelius left the first announcement to Sefström, who confirmed the name of the new metal as early as 1831: “As the name is indifferent by itself, I derived it from Vanadis, nickname of Freyja, the main goddess of ➜ Jöns Jacob Berzelius. Scandinavian mythology”. A name perhaps not so indifferent as that, since it allowed him to sign this discovery of a Scandinavian name. In view of the originality of Sefström’s work, the scientific community effectively retained vanadium, to the detriment of erythronium proposed by del Río.

z Vanadis, an inspirational goddess In Scandinavian mythology, the gods are divided between the Æsir, who have powers of justice and war, and the Vanir, who are oriented towards fertility and prosperity. Freyja is one of the Vanir, hence her nickname Vanadis. Like Venus among the Romans, she is the goddess of fertility and beauty, qualities exemplified by vanadium, which is remarkable for the diversity and rich colours of its derivatives. Berzelius was apparently inspired by Vanadis5. In a letter of 1831 to his German colleague Wöhler, famous for his successful synthesis of urea, he wrote roughly as follows: You have knocked once at the door of Vanadis and she did not answer, and you did not insist, but sometime later Sefström kept knocking at her door, it finally opened, and “out 5.  Weeks, Mary Elvira, Discovery of the Elements, 3rd  ed. revised 1935 (1st, 1933), Journal of Chemical Education, Easton, Pa, USA, 371 p., p. 88. 77

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

of this union vanadium was born”. A powerful metaphor which Wöhler willingly accepted since in the same year he wrote to Liebig this time: “I am an ass” for not having discovered vanadium in the Mexican ore. Finally, Berzelius, consoling Wöhler by telling him that the synthesis of urea required more genius “than the discovery of 10 new elements”. So much emotion around vanadium... and the beautiful Vanadis... who later inspired astronomers, since an asteroid discovered in 1884 was named Vanadis: another correspondence between a star and a metal, but a fortuitous one this time.

z Thor, another Scandinavian deity Berzelius had already drawn on Scandinavian mythology to name thorium in 1818 a metal he believed to be new, based on the name Thor, of the god of thunder and lightning. Armed with his hammer, this god is an avatar of Jupiter and Donar in Germanic mythology. Later on, when Berzelius discovered, this time really, a new metal in 1829, at about the same time as the rediscovery of vanadium, he took up the name thorium, this time wisely. In the classification, thorium (Th), the 90th element and 2nd  actinide, is far removed from vanadium (V), the 23rd element and 3rd transition metal. However, in the symbolism of the days of the week, Thursday/ jeudi/Donnerstag, dedicated to Thor, Jupiter and Donar, just precedes Friday/vendredi/Freitag, dedicated to Frigg, Venus and Freyja, known as Vanadis, sometimes confused with Frigg. Latin

French

Spanish

English

German

Jovis dies (day of Jupiter)

jeudi

jueves

Thursday (day of Thor)

Donnerstag (day of Donar)

Veneris dies (day of Venus)

vendredi

viernes

Friday (day of Frigg)

Freitag (day of Freyja)

78

Vanadis and Thor, day and night

z Epilogue and alchemical couple Thanks to the great Swedish chemist Berzelius, Scandinavian mythology is represented in the Periodic Table by vanadium and thorium. The goddess Vanadis, among the Vanir, symbolizing vanadium, a trace element, which makes steel ductile and gives beautiful derivatives, in front of the god Thor, among the Æsir, twice as heavy, radioactive, and the oxide of which resists very high temperatures... Could it be an implicit reference to the philosophy of yin (the dark earth, the supple, the “feminine”) and yang (the luminous sky, the hard, the “masculine”), the basis of Chinese alchemy?

➜ The

couple from the Nordic mythology, Freyja or Vanadis, goddess of beauty and fertility, and Thor, god of thunder and war: an alchemy of the contrary principles inspiring the names of the elements vanadium (V) and thorium (Th)!

79

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

8

The oracles of Amun ammonia, ammonium, amine and amide

Against all odds, the history of the word ammonia takes us as far back as Ancient Egypt, where the Egyptian god Amun (Ammon in Greek) was called “king of the gods”. The Greeks likened him to Zeus, then the Romans to Jupiter. The temples of Amun gained considerable importance in antiquity, especially the temple of Siwa Oasis, now located in north-western Egypt, near the Libyan border.

z A geographical landmark Because of the immense reputation of this temple, where the oracles of Amun were received, the nearby city took the Greek name of Ammon and its region the name of Ammonis, which became almost synonymous with Libya. Quite naturally, the adjective qualifying the geographical belonging appeared: Ammôniakos, “of Libya”.

z A beneficial resin

➜ Gum

ammoniac.

Plants found in this region exude a resin to which multiple medicinal and other virtues were attributed in ancient times: it was used in particular, and still is, in manuscript illumination to lay gold leaf. This resin, collected in the form of “tears”, was named in Greek ammôniakon, then in Latin ammoniacum, and today gum ammoniac.

As we can see, the term ammoniac here does not mean that this gum contains ammonia, but that it originates from regions near an ancient temple of Amun, just as gum arabic is called because it was found in Arabic-speaking regions. 80

The oracles of Amun

z The origin of ammonia Apart from gum ammoniac, a completely different product was collected from the accumulations of sand impregnated with the droppings and urine of the numerous camels which sojourned to rest in oases such as that of the Temple of Amun. For the same reason, this product had the same Greek name, ammôniakon, as gum ammoniac, but this time it contained ammonium salts that could release ammonia, NH3. Let us note here that Pliny the Elder compared ammonia and ➜ The god Amun. even Ammon with the Greek word ammos, “sand”, which belongs yet to another family of words, from which we find the learned name of the sand viper in French, ammodyte, and the adjective ammophilic, “which lives in the sand” (not to be confused with ammonophilic, for a plant that metabolizes the ammonium ion). This link between Ammon and its derivatives with ammos, “sand”, is actually a popular etymology. From the Greek ammôniakon comes the word ammonia attested as early as the 16th century, then also ammonia gas. This product remained made from natural urea until a synthesis process using atmospheric nitrogen was developed at the beginning of the 20th century. Thus the name of a great god of Ancient Egypt is at the origin of the word ammonia, in English as well as in other languages: French ­ammoniac, German Ammoniak, Spanish amoníaco... In 1809, the English chemist Davy6 had the intuition that ammonia,

6.  Davy, Humphry, Annals of Chemistry and Physics, 1, 70, 1809, p. 258. 81

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

from which he had obtained an amalgam with mercury, might be a “metallic substance in its own nature”, which he called ammonium, “in order to facilitate the discussion concerning it”. Later on, it was confirmed by Berzelius, who in 1825 identified the ammonium ion as NH4+. Subsequently, an amine is referred to as an NH2R or NHR1R2 or NR1R2R3 compound, and an amide is referred to as an R-CO-NR1R2 compound.

z What does this have to do with ammonite fossils? Why the name ammonite? Were these fossils first found in Libya, or did the supposed metabolism of these extinct cephalopods involve ammonia? Not at all, and it is still to the god Amun that we must turn. Indeed, the ram was the main animal dedicated to this god, portrayed as a man, sometimes with a ram’s head, sometimes with a human head wearing ram’s horns. Spirally coiled ammonites reminded those who found them of ram’s horns long before the understanding of what fossils really were, which only dates back to the 18th  century. Already in Pliny the Elder, we find the appellation Ammonis cornu, which became in Old French corne d’Amon, “horn of Amun”, until the 18th century, and finally ammonite.

➜ Ammonite

reminiscent of Amun’s horns.

Wikipedia, cc-by-sa-3.0, Eduard Solà.

z Unexpected epilogue The names of ammonia and ammonite meet, so to speak, in the same divine and mythological inspiration. 82

The oracles of Amun

➜ Ammonia

(NH3), the god Amun, the gum ammoniac from Libya and the ammonites (reminiscent of the shape of the ram’s horns of the god Amun)... unsuspected family ties! Jr Rgen Liepe.

So, we have now – in the course of Chapter 3 – added 29 elements to the 5 elements of Chapter 1 and the 13 elements of Chapter 2, for a total of 47. 1

18

1

2

H

hydrogen

2

13 atomic number

4

3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium

K

potassium 37

Rb

rubidium

boron

12

Ca

calcium 38

Sr

strontium

Ba

barium 88

87

francium

B

name

13

Mg

magnesium

56

55

Cs

caesium

5

symbol

Be

beryllium

20

19

Fr

He

Ra

radium

Al

3 21

Sc

22

4 22

Ti Ti

5

23 23

VV

scandium titanium titanium vanadium vanadium 39

Y

40 40

Zr Zr

4141

Nb Nb

yttrium zirconium zirconium niobium niobium 72 73 73 lanthanide Hf Ta Ta hafnium tantalum tantalum 104 105 actinide Rf Db rutherfordium dubnium 57

57

La La

58

58

CeCe

lanthanum lanthanum cerium cerium 89

Ac

9090

ThTh

actinium thorium thorium

6 24 24

Cr Cr

chromium chromium 42

Mo

7 25

Mn

manganese 4343

TcTc

8 26

Fe iron 44

Ru

molybdenum technetium technetium ruthenium 74 75 76 74

W

Re

W tungsten tungsten 106

rhenium

seaborgium

bohrium

Sg 59 59

Pr Pr

107

Bh

60 60

Nd Nd

Os

osmium 108

Hs

hassium 61

61

9 27 27

10 28 28

Co Co

11 29

Ni Ni

cobalt cobalt

Cu

nickel nickel

copper

4646

45 45

Rh

rhodium rhodium 77 77

47

Pd Pd

Ag

Pt

Au

palladium palladium 78

Ir

Ir iridium iridium 109

platinum

79

gold

110

Mt

silver

111

Ds

Rg

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium 62

62

63

63

64

12 30

Zn zinc 48

Cd

cadmium 80

Hg

mercury 112

Cn

copernicium 64

65

Pm SmSm Eu Eu Gd GdTb Pm

praseodymium neodymium prometheum promethiumsamarium samariumeuropiumeuropium praseodymium neodymium gadoliniumgadolinium terbium 91

92 92

protactinium

uranium uranium

Pa

UU

93 93

94 94

95

Np Np Pu Pu Am

neptunium americium neptuniumplutonium plutonium

➜ We

96

Cm curium

97

Bk

berkelium

aluminium 31

Ga

gallium 49

In

indium 81

Tl

14 6

C

carbon

15 7

N

nitrogen 15

16 sulphur 34 34

chlorine

32

phosphorus 33 33

germanium

arsenic arsenic

selenium selenium

bromine

Ge 50

Sn tin

82

Pb

P

As As 51

Sb

antimony 83 83

Bi

113

114 flerovium

moscovium

66

Dy

dysprosium 98

Cf

lead

Fl 67

Ho

holmium 99

Es

californium einsteinium

Mc 68

Er

erbium 100

Fm

fermium

S

Se Se

17

Cl 35

Br

5252

53

tellurium tellurium 84

iodine

polonium

astatine

116

117

livermorium

tennessine

Te Te

Po Lv 69

Tm

thulium 101

Md

mendelevium

can now start filling in the parts of lines 6 and 7 at the bottom of the table: – lanthanum and the following 7 lanthanides are rare earths; – thorium and the uranium, neptunium, plutonium series are among the first actinides.

83

9

F

fluorine

14

Si

nihonium

Nh

8

O

oxygen

17

silicon

Bi bismuth bismuth 115

thallium

16

I

85

At Ts 70

Yb

ytterbium

helium 10

Ne neon 18

Ar

argon 36

Kr

krypton 54

Xe

xenon 86

Rn

radon 118

Og

oganesson 71

Lu

lutetium

102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

Lr

Chapter 3 – Gods, myths and legends

➜ A

mysterious whitish band is visible in the starry sky, called the Milky Way, after the Ancients who saw a “milky circle”: in Latin circulus lacteus, in Greek galaxias kuklos, from gala, galactos, “milk”, from which the name galactose comes in Ch. 8. We know today that the Milky Way is the disk-shaped star cluster to which the Sun belongs, as seen edgewise hence its galaxy name, which is derived from the Greek name for milk. But why is that? In Greek mythology, Zeus placed his new-born son Heracles on the breast of his wife Hera, then asleep, so that the baby could absorb the divine milk. And when Hera woke up with a start, she pushed the unknown baby away, and a stream of her milk spilled into the sky, forming the famous Milky Way, if we believe the tale.

84

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Travels with words

4

Where we find city, country and even continent names 1 A good harvest in Scandinavia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

2 France and Germany, face to face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

92

3 In Scotland, not so far from Loch Ness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

96

4 On the shores of the Aegean. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100

5 Travels across Ireland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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WHEN DISCOVERERS INDULGE IN GEOGRAPHY Old names… We still remain in the world of legends with the mythical name of a mysterious Nordic country, Thule (hence thulium), which was perhaps Scandinavia, sometimes named in Latin Scandia (hence scandium). The map below locates various European regions and cities with their Latin names reflected in those of chemical elements. We have already seen that copper can be traced back to Cyprus, cadmium to Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes (Greece), and bronze (an alloy of two elements) perhaps to Brundisium, the Latin name of Brindisi. The other names on the map will appear in the following pages, where we will also find rhenium, named after Rhenus, the Latin name of the Rhine.

SCANDIA Holmia • Hafnia • GERMANIA Lutetia • GALLIA

RUTHENIA

Brundisium •

MAGNESIA Cadmea • (Thebae) CYPRUS

... and new names… The names of chemical elements of geographical origin are sometimes linked to the place where their ore was found, for example near two Nordic villages, Strontian in Scotland and Ytterby in Sweden, which have thus acquired a certain celebrity, at least in the world of chemistry. More often, the country or city where the element was discovered is taken into account. At other times, what is taken into account is the country of birth of the discoverer, as in the case of two great ladies in the history of chemistry. 86

The amazing history of element names

Born Maria Skłodowska in 1867 in Warsaw, Marie Curie arrived in France in 1891, and she showed her attachment to Poland by naming polonium in 1898. Marguerite Perey, born in 1909 near Paris, worked from 1929 at the Radium Institute, directed by Marie Curie until her death in 1934. She discovered at this Institute in 1939 the radioactive element that she named francium (accepted in 1949), thereby honoring her native country, as Marie Curie did with polonium.

➜ 2019,

the 80th anniversary of the discovery of francium.

Marguerite Perey: Musée Curie (coll. Institut du Radium).

Late globalization All the geographical names cited so far are European, and one can add Europe itself for europium in 1901 (cf. Ch. 3, Section 3), which is the most obvious example. It was as a result of the development of nuclear physics in the United States that America appeared on the Periodic Table, with americium in 1950, and soon afterwards other names for artificial elements which will be presented later in Ch. 6. It is now high time to go on a journey.

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1

A good harvest in Scandinavia yttrium (Y), ytterbium (Yb), terbium (Tb), erbium (Er), scandium (Sc), holmium (Ho), thulium (Tm), dysprosium (Dy), lutetium (Lu) and hafnium (Hf)

The 17 rare earths form a sort of right angle in the periodic classification and are divided into two series: the cerium series already dealt with in Ch. 3, Section 3, and the yttrium series where we commence the journey. Column 3 21

Sc

scandium 39

Y

Line 6

yttrium 57

La

lanthanum

58

Ce

cerium

59

Pr

60

Nd

61

Pm

praseodymium neodymium prometheum

62

Sm

samarium

63

Eu

europium

64

Gd

gadolinium

65

Tb

terbium

66

Dy

dysprosium

67

Ho

holmium

68

Er

erbium

69

Tm

thulium

70

Yb

ytterbium

71

Lu

lutetium

15 lanthanides ➜ The

17 rare earths, including 8 in the cerium series (blue) and 9 in the yttrium series (red).

z In the beginning was a black stone found close to Ytterby Rare earths, chemically very close to each other, are often intimately associated in the same ores. This is how yttrium and 8 other elements afterwards were discovered in the same black stone found in 1788 near the small village of Ytterby, not far from Stockholm: a common mineralogical origin which will translate an exceptional kinship between the names of these 9 elements, or almost all of them.

88

A good harvest in Scandinavia

➜ Ytterby

is a village located 20 km north-east of central Stockholm, on the island of Resarö, one of the approximately 30,000 islands and islets of all sizes that make up the Stockholm archipelago.

It was the Finnish mineralogist Johan Gadolin who identified in this Ytterby mineral a new oxide, named from Ytter(by), yttria, hence the name of the new metal, yttrium (1816). It was only a beginning because, thanks to the tenacity of several generations of researchers, this Ytterby mineral, named gadolinite, was to deliver, over a century, 8 other new elements...

z And from Ytterby, three more rare earth names... The first two were highlighted by the Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander, who adopted a rather original “linguistic” approach: from Ytterby, already at the origin of yttrium, he drew in 1843 the names of two new oxides, terbine and erbine. Following a confusion of sorts, the metal of erbine was finally named terbium, and that of terbine, finally erbium, but in any case, we ended up with three elements named after the same village name, a result which had never been seen before. And yet, this record was broken in 1878, when the Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac discovered a new element from erbium (therefore impure), which he named outright ytterbium, the form most explicitly derived from Ytterby. In terms of linguistics, we can say that, retroactively, terbium and erbium seem to come from a succession of two apheresis (= elimination of one or more letters at the beginning of a word): ytterbium → (yt)terbium → (t)erbium, 89

Chapter 4 – Travels with words

while yttrium is formed on Ytter, also coming from Ytter(by) but by an apocope (= elimination of letters at the end of a word).

z ... then other rare earths discovered in the surroundings We won’t go beyond four names from Ytterby, which is still an absolute record. The discoverers then tapped into the geographic record surrounding Ytterby. Thus, in 1879 the names holmium, given by the Swedish chemist Cleve from Holmia, the Latin name of Stockholm, scandium given by the other Swedish chemist Nilson, from Scandia, a Latin name of Scandinavia, and thulium, given again by Cleve, from Thule, the ancient and mythological name of Scandinavia, a name known today especially thanks to Goethe’s poem, The King of Thule (1782). HAFNIUM IS ALSO SCANDINAVIAN In 1923, the Dutch chemist Coster and his Hungarian colleague Hevesy discovered in a zirconium ore a new metal, which they called hafnium from Hafnia, the Latin name for Copenhagen, simply because they had carried out their work there. And this is how the capital of Denmark gives its name to element 72, located under zirconium (40), itself under titanium (22), in column 4 of the Periodic Table.

z Plus some French chemists, to finish the series The seemingly inexhaustible Ytterby stone will deliver yet another 8th and 9th rare earths, named by two French chemists, who deliberately moved away from Ytterby and Scandinavia. First of all dysprosium was named in 1886 by Lecoq de Boisbaudran who, as a good Hellenist, specified his inspiration: “From Δυσπρóσιτος: difficult to approach”. Indeed, the Greek adjective dusprositos contains the prefix dus-, “dys-“, which expresses difficulty, and the element -prositos, from the verb prosiemai, “to approach”. Boisbaudran thus informed us of the trouble he took to highlight this element by spectroscopy, which was his preferred technique of analysis. However, the most unexpected name is probably that of the last rare earth in this story, given by the French chemist Georges Urbain in a 90

A good harvest in Scandinavia

formal Communication to the French Academy of Sciences in 1907 under the title “A new element: lutetium, resulting from the splitting in two of Marignac’s ytterbium”.

z Epilogue in Paris, 5th arrondissement Urbain returned to a geographical name, but with a seamless transition from Ytterby to the Latin Quarter in Paris. He had carried out his work there, at École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielle de la ville de Paris (ESPCI) then at École Normale Supérieure, not far from the remains of Arènes de Lutèce (from Lutetia, the Roman name for Paris), which may have inspired him to choose lutetium. A single ore is therefore the origin of 9 elements, and what’s more, 9 rare earths... More than rare, this case is unique!

➜ Thule,

after the Carta Marina of Olaus Magnus (1539). Thule is on this map an imaginary island between the Faroe Islands and Iceland. The Danish explorer Rasmussen founded in 1910 in north-west of Greenland a base named Thule, the place of a US airbase since 1945.

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Chapter 4 – Travels with words

2

France and Germany, face to face gallium (Ga), germanium (Ge), ruthenium (Ru) and francium (Fr)

In 1875, the French chemist Lecoq de  Boisbaudran proved by spectroscopy the existence of a new element, which he isolated from an ore found in the French Pyrenees and which he named gallium without any justification. The international community accepted gallium, while at the same time a somewhat controversial interpretation arose: the discoverer – it was conjectured – had put himself forward by taking his own name, proudly symbolized by a cock (in Latin, gallus) on the family coat of arms. Such an attitude had never been seen before, and, even though elements were later named after great scientists, it was not seeming to do so during their lifetime.

z Nicknames in family names The patronymic Lecoq (or also Lecocq) probably comes from a nickname attributed to some ancestor who was glib, noisy, even belligerent… much as the cock crowing at dawn from the top of his mound of manure, asserting his supremacy to the hens and rivals. Moreover, Lecoq de Boisbaudran hid the name of a second bird because Baudran, visible in Boisbaudran (a hamlet near Angoulême), is formed on the Germanic roots bald, “audacious”, and hram, “raven”, just as for example Bertrand is from berht, “brilliant”, or Wolfram from wulf, “wolf”, as seen in Ch. 3 about tungsten. Crows and ravens were deified in Scandinavian mythology.

92

France and Germany, face to face

➜ Paul-Émile, known as François, Lecoq de Boisbaudran

(1838-1912), contemplating his coat of arms: Azure, a cock argent, combed, beaked and membered gules, while under Boisbaudran’s portrait we see a raven (hram).

z So, should we speak of cock or of Gaul? After leaving the field open to interpretation, Lecoq de Boisbaudran revealed in 1877, in the Annals of Chemistry and Physics1, that he named the gallium “in honour of France (Gallia)”. The problem is that this written explanation came late, and that many continued to see gallium as a derivative of gallus, “cock”. Yet the justification given by Lecoq de Boisbaudran was credible: nearly thirty years earlier, the name ruthenium had been formed from the Late Latin name Ruthenia, for Russia. Indeed, the German chemist Osann named in 1828 ruthenium the metal he discovered as an impurity in platinum coming from the Urals. But, let’s return to gallium.

z Patriotism and chemistry By dedicating gallium to France, Lecoq de Boisbaudran honoured his country at a time of great tension between Germany and France, who had just lost a war. In 1886, the German chemist Winkler discovered a 1.  Lecoq de Boisbaudran, François, Sur un nouveau métal, le gallium, Annales de chimie et de physique, série 5, tome X, Paris, 1877, p. 103. 93

Chapter 4 – Travels with words

new element, which he unequivocally named germanium after Germania, the Latin name of Germany. This was seen as a response to Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and in hindsight it even strengthened the link between gallium and Gallia. Other names of geographical origin will follow, as in 1901 that of europium (a more consensual name, cf. Ch. 3, Section 3), or again in 1949 that of francium, which this time unambiguously honours France, the homeland of Marguerite Perey, who discovered it ten years earlier, in 1939.

31

Ga

gallium

32

Ge

germanium

➜ The

classification published by Mendeleev in 1869 leaves two empty slots for eka-aluminium and eka-silicon, located at one place (eka = 1 in Sanskrit) of Al and Si. These slots are occupied today by gallium and germanium.

Despite all the arguments in favour of the geopolitical explanation, dictionaries still hesitate today between the two origins, gallus, “cock”, or Gallia, “Gaul”. More precisely, we can admit that the name gallium refers explicitly to France, the nationality of its discoverer, but implicitly also to the name of this discoverer, Lecoq. This double motivation is strangely similar to that of the name fuchsine (cf. Ch. 8, Section 1), with one difference: while the Renard brothers immediately displayed the fuchsia flag (if one dares say so), writing that fuchsine was related to fuchsia, on the contrary, Lecoq de Boisbaudran left a degree of doubt for a while, which remains alive in people’s minds today.

z A Gallic epilogue To conclude, let us return to Latin: we can see that the two explanations of the name gallium are not so far from each other because gallus, “cock”, is homonymous with Gallus, “Gaul, Gallic” (itself from the Germanic walho, “foreigner”). Moreover, gallus, “cock”, perhaps simply means “Gallic (bird)”, the cock having been considered as typically Gallic by 94

France and Germany, face to face

the Romans, who joked about the pun Gallus gallus, “Gallic cock” (still an omnipresent sports emblem of France!). It is also possible that gallus, “cock”, is an onomatopoeic name, linked to the bird’s song, as is the case in French, where coq evokes the cock-a-doodle-do (cocorico in French). In any case, the name of gallium flatters the national pride of France. 14

Si

silicon 31

Ga

gallium

32

Ge

33

germanium

As

arsenic

z The discovery of gallium and germanium, a boon to the world of electronics...

➜ The

first transistor of history, based on a germanium monocrystal.

It is on a germanium crystal that the transistor effect was demonstrated in 1947 by American researchers Barden, Shockley and Brattain (all three Nobel Prize winners in physics in 1956) at Bell Laboratories. This major innovation paved the way for the fabulous development of electronics, which would ultimately rely mainly on silicon. Subsequently, one of the first manifestations of the light-emitting diode effect (LED effect) was obtained with a crystal of gallium arsenide: GaAs, often called AsGa in technology. Most LEDs are based on salts including gallium atoms.

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Chapter 4 – Travels with words

3

In Scotland, not so far from Loch Ness barium (Ba), strontium (Sr), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), beryllium (Be), radium (Ra) and alkaline earth metals

As we saw in the introduction to Chapter  2, these metals are said to be alkaline earths, alkaline because they are close to alkaline metals, and earths because they have been extracted from an ore. In the Periodic Table, between column 1 of the alkaline metals and column 3 of the rare earths, there is logically column 2 of the six alkaline earths. The name radium, from radius, “radiation”, is due to Pierre and Marie Curie who discovered it in 1898. And of the other five, named after their ores, magnesium will take us to the shores of the Aegean in the next section, beryllium will take us to India and strontium first to Scotland in the following lines.

Column 1 Column 2 alkaline alkaline earth 3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium 19

K

4

Be

beryllium 12

Mg

Column 3 magnesium rare earths 20

21

Ca

Sc

potassium

calcium

scandium

37

38

39

strontium

yttrium

Rb

rubidium 55

Cs

caesium 87

Fr

francium

Sr

Y

56

Ba

lanthanoids

barium 88

Ra

radium

z Lime (CaO) and magnesia (MgO) Limestone and its transformation into lime in a kiln has been known since antiquity. This word lime is linked to a Germanic root, *lim, as well as English loam, or German Leim, “glue”, but in Romance languages, and in this case in German, the name of lime comes from Latin, as shown in the following table: Greek

Latin

khalix

calx, calcis

French Italian chaux

calce

calcarius, calcaire calcare “relative to lime”

96

Spanish

German

English

cal

Kalk

lime

caliza

Kalkstein

limestone

In Scotland, not so far from Loch Ness

The Greek khalix, then the Latin calx, calcis, first referred to any stone, then to limestone and to lime itself. From the Latin calx comes chaux, “lime”, in French, and from its derivative calcarius, ”relative to lime”, comes calcaire, “limestone”. Finally, in Late Latin appears the verb calcinare, from which to calcine, by analogy with the treatment of limestone in a lime kiln. As for magnesia, it has been known since at least the Middle Ages, and its name goes back to Magnesia, the Greek region, through albeit complicated paths, which we shall explore in the next section.

z Baryte (BaSO4) and strontianite (SrCO3) As early as 1774-1776, several chemists detected a new metal in very high density minerals, thus named “heavy spar” or “heavy earths”, and in 1787, the French chemist and revolutionary Guyton de  Morveau wrote: “we replace these inappropriate or periphrased expressions by the word baryte, derived from the Greek βαρυς, “gravity”. In fact, baryte derives from the Greek barus, but meaning “heavy”, which is related to baros, “gravity”, and baryte is etymologically synonymous with heavy (earth).

SCOTLAND

Then another mineral, first thought to be baryte, was identified with the carbonate of an unknown metal and named strontianite in 1791. It came from the vicinity of Strontian, a village on the Northern banks, at the head of Loch Sunart on the Atlantic coast of Scotland. The name of the village in Gaelic, Sròn an t-Sìthein, means “The top of the Fairies’ Mountain”, laden with a certain mystery, as in many remote Scottish glens and lochs like Morar or Ness!

z From minerals to metals At the end of the 18th century, baryte, strontianite, lime and magnesia were known. All that remained was to isolate the four corresponding metals, which was done in 1808 by electrolysis by the English chemist 97

Chapter 4 – Travels with words

Humphry Davy, who wrote: “by the same principles I followed in naming potassium and sodium, I shall venture to designate the metals of the alkaline earths by the names barium, strontium, calcium, and magnium (a few years later replaced by magnesium)”. These names are adopted by all languages, with the exception of some variants, such as barium, which is substituted for baryum in French, a point to which we shall return in the epilogue. On another hand, we see that Davy preferred deriving calcium from Latin calx, calcis, than from English lime. But the name of a 6th alkaline earth metal still remains to be explained.

z From beryl Be3Al2 (Si6O18) to beryllium Known since antiquity, beryl is a precious stone, of which aquamarine and emerald are famous varieties. Its name comes, via the Latin beryllus, from the Greek bêrullos, itself borrowed from a language of the south of India (probably derived from a city name, Belur today, 200 km west of Bangalore). Pliny the Elder wrote: “India produces it, and it is rarely found elsewhere”.

➜ Beryl,

of the emerald variety.

Wikipedia, license by-sa-3.0, Rob Lavinsky.

In 1798, the French chemist Vauquelin identified in an emerald a new metal named then, in reference to a certain sweet taste of its salts, glucinium, from the Greek gleukos, “sweet wine”, from which glucose would later come. From 1828, the name beryllium was preferred to glucinium, the origin of beryllium being more transparent, so to speak! By the way, the German Brille, “glasses”, comes from Old German berille, itself from Latin beryllus, because beryl was once used to make optical lenses.

98

In Scotland, not so far from Loch Ness

z “Hyperetymological” epilogue We can finally stop on the of baryum in French, certainly inspired by the Greek barus, “heavy” (cf. barycentric), but which is not selfevident here. Indeed, the form bar.ium, with the suffix -ium (neutral of the Latin suffix -ius which translates some dependence) is logical for a substance extracted from an ore, and is generally used for metal names in English (with only few exceptions) as well as in French, with the only exception of bary.um. Furthermore, the English language has kept barium proposed by Humphry Davy, with an , as in German, Barium, and to top it all off, in modern Greek, barium is called bario (βαριο, with an iota), whereas the adjective “heavy” is still barus, as in ancient Greek (βαρυς, with an upsilon). This of baryum in French results, if one dares to say so, from an etymological overzealousness.

➜ Loch

Ness, where the “monstrous” mystery remains.

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Chapter 4 – Travels with words

4

On the shores of the Aegean magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), magnetite, magnesite, magnesia, rhenium (Re) and… rosin

In 1808, as discussed in the previous section, the English chemist Humphry Davy discovered, by electrolysis of magnesia (MgO), the metal named magnesium, derived from magnesia. The latter name dates back to Medieval Latin magnesia, itself derived from the name of the stone of Magnesia (from the Latin Magnes lapis, itself from the Greek Magnês lithos). The Ancients named several minerals after it, but mainly the “magnet stone”, discovered, according to legend, by a shepherd named Magnês, who found this stone stuck to the nails of his sandals. Magnesium is not magnetic, however, and the link between magnesium and Magnesia is less simple than it seems, for two main reasons: - on the one hand, the name magnesia has not always been reserved for magnesium derivatives. For example, manganese dioxide (MnO2) used to be called black magnesia, and its metal was first called magnesium, quickly renamed manganese, leaving magnesium with its current meaning. In addition, the name magnetite, although resembling magnesia, refers to a third metal since it is an iron oxide (Fe3O4), which does show strong magnetic properties; - on the other hand, there were in antiquity several places named Magnesia, and this is where we ought to start, because it is a first source of possible confusion between all these names.

z Magnesia in Greece and Asia Minor The Magnetes, a people already present in Homer’s texts in the 8th century BC, gave their name to the region they inhabited in northeastern Greece, Magnesia. From the 4th  century  BC onwards, the 100

On the shores of the Aegean

Magnesians swarmed in Asia Minor, mainly in Magnesia ad Sipylum (today Manisa in Turkey), near Mount Sipylus, and in Magnesia on the Maeander, not far from the river famous for having inspired the name of a sinuous path, a meander (such as that of the Thames or the Seine for example).

IA AS

Troy •

➜ The

OR IN

Pergamon •

Aegean Sea MAGNESIA Athens •

M

GREECE

The same name derived from Magnesia could therefore be given to completely different minerals coming from places very far away from each other. Thus, Pliny the Elder evokes several kinds of minerals that he named in Latin magnetes (plural of magnes, magnetis)2.

•Magnesia ad Sipylum

Colophon •

Magnesia of the Meander • Meander

three Magnesia’s in Greek antiquity.

z Magnetite (Fe3O4) The first kind of Pliny’s magnetes corresponded to what we call magnetite today, and which impressed the Ancients so much by its ability to attract iron. The origin of the names magnet, magnetite is confused with the origin of the name of the Magnetes and Greek Magnesia, where this ore is actually present, and which is therefore in a way the cradle of magnetism. However, many authors associate the name magnetite with Magnesia ad Sipylum in Asia Minor, as Mount Sipylus was also known for the exploitation of its magnetite deposits.

z Manganese dioxide (MnO2) According to Pliny, a second kind of magnetes was used as an additive in the manufacture of glass, and therefore was certainly not magnetite. 2.  Pliny the Elder, Natural History, bilingual edition Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2003, Book XXXVI, § 126 to 130 and 192. 101

Chapter 4 – Travels with words

We do not know precisely what mineral it was, nor what its origin was (from which Magnesia?), but from the usage mentioned, we can think of manganese dioxide, which would explain its ancient name of black magnesia. Incidentally, manganese comes from a borrowing from the ancient Italian manganese, which first referred to black magnesia and then to the metal itself. The Italian manganese is probably an alteration of magnesia, with attraction by popular etymology of the Italian mangano, “calender” (i.e., a large steel cylinder, made of manganese steel?). On the other hand, in his 1869 classification Mendeleev leaves to the right of manganese two successive empty slots, in which he predicts the future existence of two elements, provisionally named eka-manganese and tri-manganese. Eka-manganese will not be definitively identified and named technetium until 1937 (cf. Ch. 3, Section 3). As for tri-manganese, it was discovered earlier, as can be seen in the insert below. A DETOUR ACROSS GERMANY In 1925, the three German chemists Berg, Noddack and his future wife, Ida Tacke, discovered by X-ray spectroscopy a new metal in a manganese ore. They named this new element rhenium, to recall the Rhine, on the banks of which Ida Tacke was born. This element was none other than the tri-manganese predicted by Mendeleev. There are therefore three elements the name of which honours a woman chemist through the intermediary of her country or region of origin: Marguerite Perey’s francium, Marie Curie’s polonium, and Ida Tacke’s lesser known rhenium.

z What about magnesia (MgO), and even other magnesia? Current magnesia (MgO, formerly known as white magnesia) is not found with any certainty in Greek or Latin descriptions. There is indeed a third kind of magnetes which, according to Pliny, comes “from Asian Magnesia” (but which one?) and “reminds us of pumice stone”. Could it be sea foam (H4Mg2Si3O10), also sometimes called magnesia, which floats on water like pumice stone? We also know magnesium carbonate (MgCO3), called magnesite at the beginning of the 19th century, and well-known today by gymnasts, who use it as an anti-slip gym powder under the common name of... 102

On the shores of the Aegean

magnesia. But was this ore mined in ancient times? On the other hand, the Oxford Etymological Dictionary mentions the term magnes carneus (from the Latin carneus, “relative to the flesh”), used in the 16th century to refer to a powder that sticks to the tongue like iron to a magnet, and which must have been magnesia (MgO). This late name may have played a role in the very origin of the name magnesia for magnesium oxide, still referring, but indirectly, to Greek Magnesia. In any case, this illustrates the imbroglio that existed between the names magnetite, magnesia, manganese, magnesium, magnesite, given to substances, some of which are magnetic, such as magnetite and manganese, but some not, such as magnesium.

z Epilogue and vicinity If one is not afraid of a characterized abrupt change of subject (from “cock to ass”, as we say in French), there was in the vicinity of Magnesia on the Maeander the ancient Greek city Colophon (Greek Kolophôn), which gave its name to a resin named colophane in French, colofonia in Spanish, Kolophonium in German but... rosin in English (a deformation of resin), because this product, obtained by distillation of pine resin, was reputed in this city to be of excellent quality (in Greek, kolophônia pissa, “pitch of Colophon”). By the way, the informative note at the end of a book, in editorial language, is called colophon (as in French, and almost as in German, Spanish), borrowed from Greek kolophôn, “summit, end”, perhaps linked to the name of the city.

103

Chapter 4 – Travels with words K = 39

Rb = 85

Cs = 133

–

–

Ca = 40

Sr = 87

Ba = 137

–

–

–

H=1 31

Ga

gallium 32

Ge

germanium

?Yt = 88 ? ?Di = 138 ? Er = 178? Ce = 140? La = 180?

–

21

Sc

Ti = 48?

Zr = 90

V = 51

Nb = 94

–

Ta = 182

–

Cr = 52

Mo = 96

–

W = 184

U = 240

Mn = 55

–

–

–

–

Fe = 56

Ru = 104

–

Os = 195?

–

Co = 59

Rh = 104

–

Ir = 197

–

Ni = 59

Pd = 106

–

Pt = 197

–

Th = 231

Li = 7

Na = 23

Cu = 63

Ag = 108

–

Au = 199 ?

–

Be = 9,4

Mg = 24

Zn = 65

Cd = 112

–

Hg = 200

–

B = 11

Al = 27,3

–

In = 113

–

Tl = 204

–

C = 12

Si = 28

–

Sn = 118

–

Pb = 207

–

N = 14

P = 31

As = 75

Sb = 122

–

Bi = 208

–

O = 16

S = 32

Se = 78

Te = 125?

–

–

–

F = 19

Cl = 35,5

Br = 80

I = 127

–

–

–

75

Re

rhenium

Mendeleev’s first Periodic Table was published in 1869, followed by several versions (this one from Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, suppl. 1872, vol. 8, p. 149).

z 2019, the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev’s first Periodic Table

104

43

Tc

technetium

➜ Dmitri

Mendeleev, who died in 1907, had the great satisfaction of knowing the discoveries in 1875, 1879 and 1886 of the elements gallium, scandium and germanium, the existence of which he had predicted from his 1869 table. On the other hand, he was not fortunate enough to know the discoveries of rhenium in 1925 and technetium in 1937.

scandium

25

Mn

manganese 43

Tc

technetium 75

Re

rhenium

Travels across Ireland

5

Travels across Ireland carrageenan and agar-agar

The name carrageenan is a bit strange and known only to specialists. However, it designates a product commonly used in the food industry, but generally mentioned on packaging under a code name, E 407. It is a texturizing agent, which can be thickening or gelling as the case may be, and is mainly used in the composition of dairy desserts. The etymology sometimes brings together realities of completely different natures. This is the case with the origin of carrageenan, which refers us successively to algae, Irish localities and stone blocks.

z Algae... For centuries, a red alga has been harvested at low tide from the rocky shores of the North Atlantic and used as a kind of jelly for food or medicine. In Brittany, there is a traditional dessert which is prepared from milk and this seaweed, the blancmange, in French blanc-manger, in Breton pioka. This seaweed is better known as Irish moss, because it is found in abundance on the coast of Ireland, and because it clings to rocks, a bit like moss.

➜ Blancmange,

traditional in Brittany.

Licence cc-by-sa, 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, 1.0, Apmarles.

But the name Irish moss does not lead us to carrageenan, which obviously comes from another name for this alga, Carrageen moss or Carrageen, attested around 1830. This English name has been borrowed by other languages, and this is the origin of the name of the molecule historically extracted from this alga, carrageenan, in Spanish carragenano, in German 105

Chapter 4 – Travels with words

Carrageen, and in French carraghénane (where the /h/ allows us to keep a pronunciation close to English).

➜ Carrageenan,

or Irish moss, or pioka in Breton, mainly Chondrus crispus (from the Greek khondros, “cartilage”, and the Latin crispus, “curly”). Algaebase/M.D. Guiry.

of carrageenan κ. Carrageenans are polymers of galactose with sulfate groups.

➜ Structure

The question now is: what about the origin of carrageenan in English?

z Algae, irish localities... The name Carrageen moss suggests that Carrageen is a proper name, which in this case is certainly a place name: Carrageen (Carraigín in Irish) is, apart from variants, the name of quite a few localities in Ireland. The highly authoritative Oxford dictionary links the name of the seaweed to that of 106

Travels across Ireland

the village of Carrigeen, close to Waterford harbour, on the south-east coast of Ireland. This indication has been taken up by other works, but is now questioned. Consideration has also been given to the area of Carrigan Head, Donegal, located on the opposite, north-west coast of Ireland. The location of Carrageen thus remains uncertain, but in any case this geographical name has itself an etymology (given by toponymy, i.e., the science of place names).

z Algae, Irish localities and stone blocks In Irish, Carraigín, as such or under an orthographic variant, is the diminutive of carraig, “rock”, and is the typical name of a town located on rocky terrain (from carraig also comes the very popular first name, Craig). Now the algae called carrageen grow themselves on rocks, and from there to think that their name comes directly from carraig, “rock”, there is only one step, which some authors have taken. But the names of the localities are undoubtedly attested well before that of the seaweed. In conclusion, carrageenan comes from the name of an alga, which itself ultimately dates back to the Irish carraig, “rock”, probably through the name of a place, which is not, however, located on the coast of Ireland. One may be disappointed with this imperfect result, but it is inherent in the etymology, which does not always succeed in removing all the uncertainties of the history of words.

z Globalized epilogue Finally, as is often the case, the use of the name has broadened beyond its original meaning, and today we are talking about carrageenan, which no longer comes only from the carrageen but also from other red algae belonging to close genera and harvested far away from Ireland, as far, e.g., as South America. These products are very similar to agar-agar (a Malaysian name), which is also prepared from red seaweed, but in South-East Asia. Agar-agars are thickeners, registered as food additive E 406, right next to carrageenans, E 407.

107

Chapter 4 – Travels with words 1

18

1

2

H

hydrogen

4 2

13

Be Be

atomic number

4 beryllium

3

Li

lithium

19 potassium

calcium calcium

K

37

Rb

rubidium

Ca Ca

87 87Fr francium Fr

13

Sc Sc

scandium scandium 39 39 yttrium yttrium

Ba Ba barium

barium 88 88 Ra radium Ra

boron

YY

lanthanide

actinide

4

5

22

23

titanium

vanadium

Ti 40

Zr

zirconium 72 72

Hf Hf

V

41

Nb

niobium 73

Ta

hafnium hafnium 104

tantalum

rutherfordium

dubnium

Rf

105

Db

6 24

Cr

chromium 42

Mo

7 25 25

Mn Mn

manganese manganese 43

Tc

molybdenum technetium 74

26

Fe iron

4444

Ru Ru

9

10

27

28

Co

Ni

cobalt

nickel

45

46

Rh

ruthenium ruthenium rhodium 76

77

osmium

iridium

106

rhenium rhenium 107

seaborgium

bohrium

hassium

W

tungsten

Sg

75 75

8

Re Re

Bh

Os 108

Hs

Pd

palladium 78

Ir

109

Pt

platinum 110

Mt

Ds

11 29

Cu

copper 47

Ag silver 79

Au gold

111

Rg

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium

14 6

C

carbon

15 7

N

nitrogen

16 8

O

oxygen

14

15

16

silicon 32 32

phosphorus

sulphur

30

aluminium 31 31

zinc

gallium gallium

germanium germanium

arsenic

Al

3 21 21

38 38

56 56

55

Cs

caesium

B

name

strontium strontium

Sr Sr

5

symbol

beryllium 12

12 Mg magnesium Mg magnesium 20 20

11

Na

sodium

francium

He

12

Zn 48

Cd

cadmium 80

Hg

mercury 112

Cn

copernicium

Ga Ga 49

In

indium 81

Tl

thallium

Si

Ge Ge 50

Sn tin

82

Pb lead

113

114

nihonium

flerovium

Nh

Fl

P

33

As 51

Sb

antimony 83

Bi

bismuth

S

34

Se

selenium

9

17

35

Kr

krypton 54

I

Xe

xenon

85

86

At

Rn

astatine

115

116

117

livermorium

tennessine

Lv

36

Br

moscovium

Mc

18

Ar

argon

bromine 53

84 84

neon

Cl

iodine

Po

Ne

chlorine

52

polonium polonium

10

F

fluorine

tellurium

Te

helium

17

Ts

radon 118

Og

oganesson

radium 57

La

lanthanum 89

Ac

actinium

58

Ce

cerium 90

Th

thorium

59

Pr

60

Nd

61

Pm

praseodymium neodymium promethium 91

92

protactinium

uranium

Pa

U

93

Np

neptunium

62

63

Sm

samarium 94

Pu

Eu

europium 95

plutonium

Am

americium

64 65

65

66 66

67 67

GdTb Tb Dy Dy HoHo

gadolinium dysprosium holmium holmium terbium terbiumdysprosium 96

Cm curium

97

Bk

berkelium

98

Cf

99

Es

californium einsteinium

68 68

Er Er

erbium erbium 100

Fm

fermium

69 69

Tm Tm

thulium thulium 101

Md

mendelevium

7070

71 71

Yb Yb

LuLu

ytterbium ytterbium lutetium lutetium 102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

Lr

➜ We are progressing: at this time, two major chemical families are complete: the entire column 2 of

the alkaline earths and all the rare earths: a lot of earths which, as a matter of fact, are metals!

➜ The

basalt organs of Giants’ Causeway in the north of Ireland. The Giants (in Greek Gigas, Gigantos, “Giant”, is formed on Gê or Gaia, “Earth”) are children of the Earth, as terrible as their brothers the Titans.

108

CHAPTER

5

Tastes, colours and smells in names

Where we perceive the word in all its senses

1 Not to overindulge in sugar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 2 When it’s scorched… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 3 An unnecessary colour?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 4 A tale with a salty lick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

INTRODUCTION TO THE FOUR FLAVOURS Aristotle was already seeking to theorize taste, a notion that has since been the subject of many studies, including that of the 19th century French chemist Chevreul based on his work on fatty acids (to be discussed in Chapter 8). Today, taste is broken down into four main flavours: – bitter like quinine (cf. Ch. 7, Section 3); – salty like sodium chloride; – sweet like sucrose (beet sugar); – acidic like citric acid (the acid in lemons). These last three flavours are related to three main categories of chemicals: salts, sugars and acids. These words are used throughout the book. Let us start by evoking the etymology of sugar and acid. Vinegar, the acid par excellence To the Latin verb acere, “to be pungent, acid, sour”, are related the adjectives acer, “pointed, sour”, acerbus, “acrid, painful, bitter” and acidus, “sour, unpleasant”, from which the common adjectives acrid, acerbic, acid are obviously derived. It is the word acid that has been retained in chemistry, as indicated in his dictionary of 1690 by Furetière, who wrote (in French): acid is “in this sense opposed to alkali”. Later on, instead of alkali, the more general term base will appear, to designate a substance which, combined with an acid (supposedly liquid), gives it solidity in the form of a salt, solid as a base on which one can lean. It’s the general law: acid + base → salt + water When wine becomes acidic, it becomes vinegar (from French vinaigre = vin, “wine” + aigre, “sour”), the Latin name of which was acetum, another derivative of the verb acere, “to be pungent”. A full circle, so to speak, since vinegar is therefore, according to the etymology, the archetypal acid. From acetum is derived in chemistry the adjective acetic, and the expression acetic acid is basically a kind of pleonasm. A bit like olive oil, since oil comes from the Latin oleum, itself from olea, “olive”. Two pleonasms, in a single vinaigrette dressing! ➜ Flavours speak for themselves

110

The amazing history of element names

From sour to sweet Acid is called in French acide, but in German Säure, from a Germanic root, also visible in the English adjective sour and in the French adjective sur, “acidic”, or in the German Sauerkraut, with Kraut, which here designates the cabbage (Sauerkraut becoming choucroute in French, where Sauer-, instead of -kraut, becomes chou, “cabbage”!). Finally, if the opposite of acid is in chemistry basic, it is rather in the gustatory field sweet, or with sugar. But where does the word sugar come from? In ancient Greece, a product called sakkhar, sakkharos, was known. It was a powder made from certain bamboos, which were actually sugar cane, a powder imported from India in small quantities for medicinal use. Honey from bees was used to sweeten food, and it was not until the 18th century that the use of cane sugar developed. The Greek sakkhar, which has remained in Modern Greek zakharê, goes back through Persian to the Sanskrit çarkara- meaning firstly granulated, hence this powdered sugar. In Latin, saccharum, “sugar”, is borrowed from Greek. Then from Sanskrit, through Persian, also comes the name of sugar in Arabic, sukkar, hence the Italian zucchero, the French sucre, the English sugar, the German Zucker, and the Spanish azúcar, where the origin al sukkar, is clearly seen. All sorts of names for sugars in chemistry In 1860, Marcellin Berthelot created the word saccharide (hence monosaccharide, like glucose, disaccharide, like sucrose, polysaccharide like starch, and at the same time, he established that the names of sugars must include the suffix -ose, on the model of glucose, a name proposed by Jean-Baptiste Dumas in 1838 from the Greek gleukos, “sweet wine”. Later on, pursuant to a suggestion of Emil Fischer, any monosaccharide will be called an ose. The Greek gleukos, “sweet wine”, derives from the adjective glukus, “sweet, pleasant”, which is opposed to “bitter” (as in sweet almonds), opposed to “salty” (as in fresh water), or opposed to “acid”, and then goes on to mean “sweet”. It is this last meaning that is used in chemistry with the element glyc(o)- or gluc(o)-, as for glucose, which is a carbohydrate, also named an ose, or sugar, or saccharide, which inspired the name of the sweetener, saccharine. Then, in the following pages, we will also talk about words related to other sensations such as colours and odours. 111

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

1

Not to overindulge in sugar dextrose, levulose, glucose and fructose

The name of dextrose, proposed in German by Kekulé in 1863, makes us think immediately of dexterity, linked to the skill of the right hand (hence ambidextrous... both hands). Indeed, a solution of dextrose makes the plane of a polarized light which crosses it turn to the right. In other words, dextrose is dextrogyre (from the Greek guroun, “to turn”), and the relation between dextrose and our right hand is, dare we say it, limpid if not transparent. Levulose, on the other hand, was so named by the French chemist and industrialist Dubrunfaut in 1860, because this molecule is levogyre, i.e., its solution turns the plane of polarized light to the left. One could perceive in levulose or levogyre the word left, which, however, has a Germanic origin different from the Indo-European root to which the radical lev(o)- is linked, as we will see in this section.

➜ Left,

right or in the middle, it is not the same sugar... 112

Not to overindulge in sugar

The linguistic difference between right and left is indeed very marked, and not only in English. Already when the Greeks interpreted the flight of birds, they turned North and considered the right (East, rising Sun) as favourable and the left (West, setting Sun) as unfavourable. This is in keeping with the fact that, since 90% of humans are right-handed, right has always been associated with the common skills of the right hand and left with the relative clumsiness of the left hand… of the right-handed of course. These two molecules, opposed like hands, are called chiral, from the Greek kheir, “hand”:

➜ On

the left: levogyre form of glucose; on the right: dextrose, dextrogyre form of glucose.

z A homogenous right The adjective meaning “to the right” has a positive connotation in most European languages. In Greek first, dexios, “to the right”, relates to dekhomai, “to accept”, because one accepts and swears with the right hand (dexia, “right hand”), hence in Latin dexter, “to the right”, and in ancient French dextre, the squire’s right hand, that once held the war horse, in French destrier (in English, the charger). Then in the languages of Western Europe, one finds meanings “to the right” for related forms, dating back to the Latin rectus, “right, correct, straight”: English right, German rechte, and, through Latin directus, “straight, direct”, Spanish derecho, and French le droit and la droite. 113

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

z A plural left On the other hand (you can say that), adjectives meaning “left” vary greatly from one language to another. These words are often of uncertain or unknown origin, and always have negative connotations. In French, the adjective gauche (“left” and “clumsy”) is of uncertain origin; it dethroned the Old French senestre, from Latin sinister, “left”, itself of obscure etymology, perhaps related to Latin sine, “without”, which would mark a lack on the left compared to the right. From Latin sinister comes the English adjective sinister, as well as in French sinistre. In Spanish, a pre-Indo-European root the original meaning of which would be “twisted” appears in izquierdo, “to the left”. Finally, in English, left, of Germanic origin, has been used in the sense of “weak” before meaning only “left” and in German, linke, from another Germanic origin, has undergone a similar evolution of meaning.

z The left in chemistry It can be seen that this overview of Western European languages does not provide an explanation for levulose. It is necessary to go back to an Indo-European root meaning perhaps “twisted” originally, from which Ancient Greek laios, “left“1, and Latin laevus, of the same meaning (as well as the equivalent adjective in Slavic languages, as in Polish lewy, “left”). This Latin laevus finally makes it possible to explain the levogyre and the levo-, “left”, element, but it is still necessary to go through a supposed diminutive *laevulus (the asterisk in front of the word indicates an uncertified by written form) to explain the levulo-, “left”, element, found in levulose.

➜ Levulose

levulose

is the levogyre form of fructose, the name of which was established by Emil Fischer in 1890, from the Latin fructus, “fruit”.

1.  We also think of Oedipus’ father, named Laius, perhaps “the clumsy one”. 114

Not to overindulge in sugar

z Glucose, the sugar par excellence So we understand the radicals of dextrose and levulose, and the element -ose remains to be explained. As we can see in the introduction to this chapter, this element is taken from the name of the most common sugar, glucose, proposed by Dumas in 1838 from the Greek gleukos, which designates sweet wine, then sweet. ➜ Glucose,

from the Greek gleukos, which designates fortified wine (vin doux in French), which is a sweet wine.

In 1890, Fischer questioned the relevance of the appellations dextrose and levulose and wrote: “Despite our renowned authors Berthelot and Kekulé, we would do well to abandon these names”. He recommended replacing them with glucose and fructose, from the Latin fructus, “fruit”, specifying levogyre or dextrogyre, and this is what is adopted in chemistry2. However, in the nutritional field, dextrose and levulose are also used.

z An epilogue for French pessimists This suffix -ose is of a completely different nature than the suffix -osis characterizing the names of pathologies (suffix -ose in French), such as psychosis (psychose in French) for example: this suffix is formed on the Greek ôsis, “action of pushing”, from the verb ôthein, “to hit, to penetrate”. It follows that the name of a sort of psychosis in French, sinistrose, “excessive pessimism”, formed with sinister, ancient name of left, is not at all synonymous with levulose. ➜ The

main species of sugar cane, named Saccharum officinarum by Linnaeus, from the Latin saccharum, “sugar”, produces sucrose, a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose, the so-called dextrose and levulose. Wikipedia cc-by-sa-2.0, Ton Rulkens.

2.  Fischer, Emil, Synthèses dans le groupe des sucres, Le Moniteur scientifique, series 4, t. IV, chez Quesneville, 1890, p. 1123. 115

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

2

When it’s scorched… ozone and osmium (Os)

The chemist Christian Schönbein (1799-1868), born in Germany, lived for a long time in Basel, where he became a Swiss citizen and published in French. He named ozone a substance that he detected by its smell, but the chemical nature of which was not understood until much later by other scientists.

➜ Ozone

has a protective role for life on Earth against UV radiation from the Sun.

z A characteristic odour During his work on water electrolysis, Schönbein notices a peculiar, slightly pungent smell on the positive electrode side, where oxygen is released. This smell, which he describes as “phosphorous” or “electric”, reminds him of the smell that is released in the vicinity of an electric arc, and even more strongly “in the vicinity of a place that has been struck by lightning”. In an 1840 publication, he recalls that at the age of twelve, not far from his home village, he had noted the same smell inside a church whose bell tower had just been struck by lightning. It is not common to find a childhood memory (a Proustian Madeleine for connoisseurs) among the arguments put forward for a scientific demonstration. 116

When it’s scorched…

Then, Schönbein thought he was in the presence of a new substance. He explained this in a letter to François Arago (published in the Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences of 1840), concluding as follows: “Being nearly sure that the odorant principle must be classified to the kind of substance to which chlorine and bromine belong, that is to say the elementary and halogenous substances, I propose to give it the name of ozone”, from Greek ozon, “smelly”, a present participle of the verb ozein, “to exhale an odour”.

➜ From

lightning striking a bell tower to scientific inspiration, from a childhood memory to Schönbein’s discovery of ozone. © Duncan Noakes. Fotolia.com

117

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

This sentence is the birth certificate of the name ozone (ozone in French, Ozon in German, ozono in Spanish...). However, Schönbein was really far from having understood the nature of this “odorous principle”: he thought – but without any certainty, he only “pre-sensed”, if one dares to say so – that it was a new halogen element, classified together with other gases with an aggressive odour, such as bromine, itself named in 1826 from the Greek brômos, “foul odour” (cf. Section 4, in this chapter).

z Ozone is tri-oxygen In 1845, two other Swiss chemists demonstrated that ozone is in fact only made up of oxygen atoms, and Schönbein took several years to recognize it. Twenty years later, finally, it was another Swiss chemist who established the three-atom oxygen molecular structure of ozone. O2 → O + O ; then O + O2 → O3 ➜ Oxygen

dissociation, followed by a catalytic reaction that results in ozone.

The above reaction occurs in the stratosphere, at the so-called “ozone layer”, known to protect life on Earth from UV radiation from the Sun. This natural ozone has been identified not by smell, of course, but by spectroscopic measurements.

z Another substance revealed by its smell The existence of ozone was therefore detected by its smell. This is a rather original case, but there was a precedent: around 1804, osmium (Os) was discovered by the smell of the water used to wash platinum ore. It was described as a “pungent vapour similar to horseradish, which irritated the eyes and throat”, or as a “rotten vegetable smell”. It was in fact osmium tetroxide (OsO4), which is highly toxic and has a strong odour, and which led the English chemist Smithson Tennant, the discoverer of osmium, to write in 1804: “As that odour is one of its most distinctive characters, I would tend, on this basis, to name the metal Osmium”, from the Greek osmê, “odour”, derived from the verb ozein, “to exhale an odour”.

118

When it’s scorched…

z An osmotic epilogue? The names ozone and osmium finally have the same Greek origin, not shared by the word osmosis, from the Greek ôsmos, a variant of ôsis, “action of pushing”, from the verb ôthein, “to hit, to penetrate”, and this is what osmotic pressure does, without any connection with the notion of odour.

➜ The

Earth is protected by the ozone layer.

119

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

3

An unnecessary colour? indium (In), rubidium (Rb), caesium (Cs) and thallium (Tl)

By analogy with the names of ruthenium, gallium, germanium..., which are reminiscent of the Latin names of Russia (Ruthenia), France (Gallia) (cf. Ch. 4, Section 2), Germany (Germania)..., it can be assumed that indium is formed on the Latin name of India (also India). But what is the reality of that? 26

Fe

27

Co

28

Ni

29

gallium 49 49

germanium

cadmium

indium indium

tin

nickel

copper

45

46

47

ruthenium

rhodium

Pd

palladium

Ag silver

zinc

Cd

Ga

32

48

cobalt

44

Rh

31

Zn

iron

Ru

30

Cu

In

Ge 50

Sn

➜ In

the Periodic Table, indium (ln) is located just below gallium (Ga), close to germanium (Ge), and on the same line as ruthenium (Ru).

z A name that came from a spectrum Indium was discovered in 1863 (after ruthenium, but before gallium and germanium) by the German chemists Ferdinand Reich and Theodore Richter, on the basis of spectroscopic analyses on a zinc ore of German origin, therefore without any a priori relation with India. In fact, these researchers detected a new indigo-coloured line in the emission spectrum of the ore, indicating the presence of a new metal, and they found this spectral line “so bright, clear and persistent” that they “wished to name this hitherto unknown metal indium”. Seen in the first degree, the name of indium is thus based on that of the colour indigo (adjective indigblau in German in the 1863 publication).

120

An unnecessary colour?

violet purple

indigo indigo

blue blue

green green

yellow yellow

orange orange

red

➜ Emission

spectrum of indium, showing the characteristic indigo line of this metal, which stood out clearly in the spectrum of the ore observed in 1863.

z Why an indigo line? The question may indeed arise because while it is fairly easy to distinguish six colours of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet), it is very difficult, if not impossible, to visually discern indigo between blue and violet. red orange yellow green blue indigo violet

➜ The

seven colours of the rainbow.

In fact, Newton, to whom we owe the modern theory of light dispersion, insisted on finding the number 7 in the colours of the rainbow. He was looking for a kind of cosmological coherence with the 7 musical notes, the 7 days of the week... and originally the 7 “non-fixed” stars (the Sun, the Moon and the 5 planets visible since antiquity). And it is because 121

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

indigo has been chosen as the “seventh” colour of the visible spectrum that we can speak of an indigo line, and that’s why indium is so called. But does the name indigo really come from the name of India?

z Where does indigo come from? Indigo is a dark blue dye with violet reflections known since ancient times when it was imported from Asia, and more particularly from India to Europe. Named in Greek Indikon, i.e., “Indian”, this dye was called by Pliny the Ancient Indicum caeruleum, i.e., “Indian azure”, and it is from the Latin indicum that the name indigo comes from, probably through the intermediary of Portuguese. So that is the relation, admittedly somewhat indirect, between India and indium. OTHER INDIAN (OR ELSEWHERE) SPIN-OFFS India appears explicitly in some French compound names such as œillet d’Inde (marigold) or cochon d’Inde (guinea pig) for example, even though they both originate in the Americas, the latter being named cobaye in a Brazilian, vernacular, Tupi language. India – and even more so the West Indies – was the New World as known to Christopher Columbus. The North American turkey was first called an Indian hen, before its French name dinde. On the contrary, the common chestnut tree (in French, marronier d’Inde) was thought to come from India, and is now known to come the Balkans, according to the experts in plant phylogenetics. But what about Indian ink (in French, encre de Chine), Indian hemp (canvas)? It’s really India. While for Indian corn (maize), Indian rubber (caoutchouc in French), it’s the Americas! And to finish (sky’s the limit?), what about the Indian summers we now enjoy throughout the world?

To conclude, and having seen that the Indian origin of the name indium is undeniable but remote, rather than geographical names, it is preferable to relate the name of indium to that of rubidium (from the Latin rubidus, “dark red”, from ruber, “red”), caesium (from the Latin caesius, “blue-green-grey”) and thallium (from the Greek thallos, “young shoot”, thallein, “to be verdant”), the names of which are formed, as for indium, from the colours of their characteristic spectral lines. In the same year 1861 indeed, rubidium and caesium were discovered by the German chemists Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff, and thallium by the English chemist Crookes, on the basis of spectroscopic studies.

122

An unnecessary colour?

z Epilogue for purists Finally, it should be noted that from the Latin indicus, “of indigo colour”, the form really analogous to rubidium (from rubidus) or caesium (from caesius) should have been indicium, where, curiously, the name of India would have been less apparent than in indium. Furthermore, the word indicium exists in Latin and means “indication”. But another question arises, that of the relevance of the name caesium. Indeed, the discoverers Bunsen and Kirchhoff explained the choice of this name from the Latin “cæsius, which, among the Ancients, was used to designate the blue of the upper part of the firmament”, corresponding for them to “the beautiful blue colour of the incandescent vapours of this new simple body”. However, caesius is applied in Latin to the colour of the eyes that turn green, that indefinable colour of the eyes of Athena, known as the gray-eyed goddess. It is in fact the adjective caeruleus or caerulus which designates the dark blue, azure, and which can indeed be related to the Latin caelum, “sky”. It is moreover, as we have just seen, Pliny’s choice for indigo, Indicum caeruleum. In evoking the blue of the sky, the discoverers should have named their new metal caerulium rather than caesium.

➜ Indigo

plant (Indigofera tinctoria, species called true indigo).

Wikipedia, license by-sa-3.0, Pancrat. 123

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

4

A tale with a salty lick fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), iodine (I) and astatine (At)

In the Periodic Table, fluorine is at the top of column 17, which has a history spanning more than a century, from the discovery of chlorine to astatine, passing by iodine, fluorine and bromine.

Column 17 9

F

fluorine 17

Cl

chlorine

z Chlorine, iodine and colours

35

Br

bromine

Chlorine was derived from hydrochloric acid (HCl), at that time 53 I called muriatic acid, from the Latin muria, “brine”, because of iodine 85 its marine origin. The name halogen, from the Greek hals, halos, At “sea”, hence “sea salt”, and the suffix -gen in the sense of “which astatine generates”, also was proposed for this element, but in 1810 the English chemist Humphry Davy preferred to call it chlorine (chlore in French), from the Greek khlôros, “green”, the colour of this gas. The chlor(o)- radical can therefore refer to chlorine, as for a chlorite (of sodium for example, NaClO2), or the green colour, as for a mineral, also called chlorite, which is an ironmagnesium aluminosilicate. The element extracted from an alga, kelp, by the French chemist Courtois in 1811, was named “iodine (iode in French) because of the beautiful violet colour of its vapour” by Gay-Lussac3. He was inspired by the Greek iôdês, “violet in colour”, from -eidês, “similar to”, and ion, the Greek name for violet, the flower that gives the colour its name. ➜ Greenish-yellow

chlorine gas.

3. Courtois, Bernard and Gay-Lussac, Louis, Annales de chimie et de physique, t. 88, Paris, 1813, p. 305. 124

A tale with a salty lick

➜ Iodine vapour and violet flowers (Viola odorata according to Linnaeus).

Balloon: Wikipedia, licence cc-by-sa-3.0, Matias Molnar.

z Fluorine, from a mineral With fluorine, one is led to believe to see again a name of a colour, thinking of the fluo tints, that is to say fluorescent, so named because this luminescence was observed on varieties of fluorspar (in French, spath fluor). Now it is also from the fluorspar (or fluorite, CaF2) that fluorine has been identified and named. However, these names have no relation with a colour: fluorspar is formed from spar, “crystalline rock”, and from the Latin fluor, “flow” (cf. fluere, “to flow”), because this mineral fluidifies the ore in metallurgy. The sequence of ideas was as follows: Latin fluor, « flow »

fluorspar



fluorescence

fluo

fluorine

As for Fluocaril®, created in 1946, it was the first toothpaste containing fluorine, with both sodium fluoride (NaF) and sodium monofluorophosphate (Na2PO3F) in the bi-fluorinated paste. And its commercial presentation is also reminiscent of fluorescent green.

➜ The

first toothpaste containing fluorine.

125

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

z Halogens In 1825, Berzelius took up the name abandoned for chlorine, halogen (= “salt generator”), to generalize it to “electronegative bodies [...] which form salts with electropositive metals”, i.e., at this date, chlorine, iodine and fluorine, to which bromine was added the following year.

z Odorous bromine and radioactive astatine In 1826, the French pharmacist Balard discovered an element in sea salt that he wanted to call muride, from the Latin muria, “brine”. But the Academy of Sciences, in order to avoid confusion with muriate (then the name of a chloride), preferred bromine (brome in French), from the Greek brômos, “foul smell”, because of its distinctive very foul smell. Finally, astatine, obtained by irradiation of bismuth (one of its isotopes), itself unstable, was named (1956) from the Greek astatos, “unstable”, from a- privative and statos, “stable”. Etymologically, astate (from the Greek) is equivalent to unstable (from the Latin), a bit like atom is equivalent to indivisible. In fact, long before the chemists, naturalists had already used the Greek astatos, because Astata is the genus of a small, highly mobile, burrowing wasp.

➜ A

wasp of the genus Astata

Saxifraga-Ab H. Baas.

126

A tale with a salty lick

Terms astatine and Astata are probably less likely to create confusion than the names that follow.

z Misleading epilogue What is the common point between chlorophyll, fluorescein and theobromine? Answer: none of these three molecules contain halogen. Chlorophyll (C55H72O5N4Mg) colours plants green and fluorescein (C20H10Na2O5) is fluorescent. As for theobromine (C7H8N4O2), the main alkaloid in chocolate, its name is formed from the genus name given by Linnaeus to the cocoa tree, Theobroma, from the Greek theos, “god”, and brôma, “food”, because chocolate was a sacred drink for the Amerindians. And since food eventually rots, from the Greek word brôma comes perhaps brômos, “foul smell”, which refers to bromine, albeit indirectly! But the culmination is reached with the marine scents, known in the French common language as smelling iodine. However theses scents are due to seaweed fumes and sea spray, and not to iodine. The reference to an iodine smell is just an association of ideas between the bracing sea air and iodine, which is a trace element (in French, oligoélément) indeed abundant in seaweed and seafood. However, there is even less iodine in the French “smell of iodine” than there is iron in spinach4!

➜ In

English

French

Italian

Spanish

German

fluorine

fluor

fluoro

fluoro

Fluor

chlorine

chlore

cloro

cloro

Chlor

bromine

brome

bromo

bromo

Brom

iodine

iode

iodio

yodo

Iod

astatine

astate

astato

ástato

Astat

bold: the language in which the name was proposed.

4.  Bouvet, Jean-François, Du fer dans les épinards, et autres idées reçues, Points, Paris, 1997, 170 p., p. 51. 127

Chapter 5 – Tastes, colours and smells in names

At this point, the most striking fact is the appearance of the 4 halogens (F, CL, Br, I) in column 17. 1

18

1

2

H

hydrogen

2

13 atomic number

4

3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium

K

13

Ca

Al

3 21

Sc

calcium 38

39

rubidium

strontium

yttrium

55 55

Cs Cs

Sr

scandium

Y

barium

francium

radium

lanthanide

22

23 vanadium

Ti 40

Zr

zirconium

Hf 104

actinide

5

titanium

hafnium

88

Ra

4

72

56

Ba

caesium caesium 87

Fr

boron

12

potassium 37 37

Rb

B

name

Mg

magnesium 20

19

5

symbol

Be

beryllium

Rf

rutherfordium 57

La

lanthanum 89

Ac

actinium

V

41

Nb

niobium 73

Ta

tantalum 105

Db

dubnium 58

Ce

cerium 90

Th

thorium

6 24

Cr

chromium 42

Mo

7 25

Mn

manganese 43

Tc

molybdenum technetium 74

W

tungsten 106

Sg

seaborgium 59

Pr

8 26

Fe iron 44

Ru

ruthenium

10

27

28

Co

77 iridium

107

bohrium

hassium

Bh 60

Nd

Hs 61

Pm

91

92

protactinium

uranium

U

93

Np

neptunium

nickel

45

Rh

rhodium

76

Os

Ni

cobalt

osmium osmium 108

75

Re

rhenium

praseodymium neodymium promethium

Pa

9

46

Pd

palladium 78

Ir

Pt

platinum

109

110

Mt

Ds

11 29

Cu

copper 47

Ag silver 79

Au gold

111

Rg

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium 62

Sm

samarium 94

Pu

63

Eu

europium 95

plutonium

Am

americium

➜ Although

64

Gd

gadolinium 96

Cm curium

12 30

Zn zinc

aluminium 31

Ga

14

14

15

16

phosphorus

sulphur

chlorine chlorine

Si 32

Ge

48

cadmium

indium

tin

80

Hg

mercury

81 81

Tl Tl

112

thallium thallium 113

copernicium

nihonium

Cn 65

Tb

terbium 97

Bk

berkelium

Nh 66

Dy

dysprosium 98

Cf

50

Sn 82

Pb lead

114

Fl

flerovium 67

Ho

holmium 99

Es

californium einsteinium

7

N

nitrogen

P

33

As

arsenic 51

Sb

antimony 83

Bi

bismuth

8

O

oxygen

S

34

Se

selenium 52

Te

tellurium 84

Po

polonium

Cl Cl 35

Br

bromine bromine 53 53

I

l iodine iodine 85 85 At astatine At

115

116

117 astatine

moscovium

livermorium

tennessine

Mc 68

Er

erbium 100

Fm

fermium

Lv 69

Tm

thulium 101

Md

mendelevium

iodine has been discovered in a brown seaweed, kelp, it is not the source of the marine scents, even if the French say that they enjoy breathing iodine on the sea shore!

128

9 17

silicon

germanium

In

16

F9 fluorine F fluorine 17 17

6

C

carbon

gallium 49 49

Cd

15

Ts 70

Yb

ytterbium

He

helium 10

Ne neon 18

Ar

argon 36

Kr

krypton 54

Xe

xenon 86

Rn

radon 118

Og

oganesson 71

Lu

lutetium

102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

Lr

CHAPTER

Explorers of the elements

6

Where we see how they named their discoveries Humphry Davy 1 Salts of the Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 2 Minerals in plants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 3 The mantle of the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Emil Fischer 4 The sugars of life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 5 The alphabet of the living kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 6 Eclectic names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

William Ramsay 7 Strange gases hidden in the air. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Glenn Seaborg 8 When it comes to physics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

HOW THE DISCOVERIES WERE NAMED Some chemists proved imaginative in naming their discoveries, for example: – Lavoisier, who invented the names with a suffix -gen, e.g., hydrogen, oxygen; – Martin Klaproth, who was inspired by astronomy and/or mythology naming uranium, tellurium, cerium, titanium; – as did Berzelius with selenium, thorium, vanadium... And here we have four chemists who have been particularly prolific and creative, both in their discoveries and in the way they named them: Humphry Davy, Emil Fischer, William Ramsay and Glenn Seaborg. Humphry Davy, a pioneer in electrochemistry After a youthful passion for poetry, Humphry Davy turned to chemistry by developing an interest in the work of Lavoisier, whose Elementary Treatise on Chemistry [Traité élémentaire de chimie] he read at the age of 18. Three years later, in his treatise on heat and light (1799), he demonstrated that heat was not a chemical element, as Lavoisier had still written under the name of caloric. Shortly afterwards, Davy became aware of Alessandro Volta’s letter of 1800 in which he explained the principle of the electric battery. Convinced of the power of this invention, he embarked on research into electrolysis, whereby he succeeded in the years 1807 to 1810, in isolating seven metals and one metalloid from ores that Lavoisier had still classified as “simple substances”. Davy thus clarified and largely completed Lavoisier’s table, while giving the new elements a consistent set of names: in Ch. 3, magnesium, calcium, barium, strontium, in Ch. 5 chlorine, and in the following pages, sodium, potassium, aluminium, silicon and boron, which Davy co-discovered. A total of ten elements, that’s a record!

➜ The Davy Medal, created in 1877 and

awarded annually by the Royal Society of London, honours Humphry Davy (1778-1829).

130

The amazing history of element names

Emil Fischer, a pioneer in biochemistry Emil Fischer wanted to work in the natural sciences, but he had to join the family business, and finally went up to university, where he attended ­Kekulé’s courses in Bonn. This opened the way to a brilliant career as a chemist, recipient of the Davy Medal in 1890 and the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “his work on the synthesis of sugars and purines”. Fischer was as inventive in discovering new molecules as he was in naming them, starting with the term purine, which will be explained in the following pages. He was likewise ingenious in naming sugars such as ribose or lyxose… playing with the letters.

➜ Emil

Fischer (1852-1919), Nobel Prize in chemistry 1902.

William Ramsay, a pioneer in gas chemistry As a child, William Ramsay was interested in everything, including learning ancient and modern languages, hence no doubt the care with which he chose the names of the gases he discovered in the air: argon, krypton, neon, xenon. These four names are based on a Greek adjective with a neutral form, ideal for neutral atoms par excellence. In addition, Ramsay had a requirement: to start only with radicals not yet used in chemistry. For example, in 1898 he named krypton with the radical of kruptein, “to hide”, avoiding the radical of lanthanein, “to be hidden”, which had been already used for lanthanum in 1839. We will see that Ramsay did apply this principle, which, however, others did not respect after him.

➜ William

Ramsay (1852-1916), Nobel Prize in chemistry 1904.

Glenn Seaborg, a pioneer in nuclear physics The young Glenn Seaborg was first interested in sports, movies and books, before turning to physics at a later age. In 1937, he received his PhD from the University of Berkeley in the field of nuclear physics. It is in this field – and at Berkeley – that he worked all his life. He participated in the Manhattan Project and the post-World War II atomic energy bodies. Seaborg discovered or contributed to the discovery of about ten transuranic elements, starting with plutonium. 131

➜ Glenn

Seaborg (1912-1999), Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1951, co-laureate with Edwin McMillan.

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

1

The salts of the Earth nitre, nitric acid, nitrates, borax, boron (B) and borates

Nitrates are the salts of nitric acid with, according to the Method of Chemical Nomenclature of 1787, the suffix -ic for acids with a maximum oxygen content, here nitric acid (HNO3), and the suffix -ate for their salts, in this case nitrate, a name based on the nitr- radical which refers to the highest antiquity.

z Sea salt and “terrestrial” salt in antiquity In the Book  XXXI of his Natural History, Pliny the Elder mentions, on one hand, sea salt (in Latin, sal, salis), and, on the other hand, a white mineral resembling sea salt, but quite distinct since it is called differently, nitrum, and comes from the evaporation of water of lakes and rivers in warm countries (Greece, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Africa). The Latin nitrum comes ➜ Phoenician merchants observing the formation from the Greek nitron, used by of molten glass where the sand is in contact with blocks of natron (Na2CO3, 10H2O), Theophrastus in a study which which Pliny called nitrum. Pliny could read but which has Les arts et métiers illustrés, Jules Rouff& Co., editors, Paris, 1890-1900. not reached us, and this Greek word nitron was itself borrowed from the Ancient Egyptian [n.t.r.]. Egypt was indeed an important source in ancient times of this “terrestrial” salt which, as we know today, 132

The salts of the Earth

was a mixture composed mainly of more or less hydrated carbonates and nitrates, of sodium and potassium. Its composition depended on where it was harvested. Later in his Book XXXVI (the penultimate), Pliny stated that, mixed with sand, this product was used to make glass, which is said to have been invented by chance by sailors making a fire on a Phoenician beach. The deduction is that, in this case, the product called nitrum by Pliny was mainly hydrated sodium carbonate.

z Borax also on the shores of salt lakes Borax is another mineral found in the evaporation deposits of salt lakes, harvested from Ancient Persia to India. Its name comes from the Late Latin borax, from the Arabic būraq, itself from the Persian būrāh, which referred to both this salt and the nitrum of the Romans. In 1807, Davy extracted a new element from it by electrolysis, which he named boron in English, on the model of carbon, and at the same time, Gay-Lussac and Thenard obtained this element by another route, naming it bore in French (in German Bor, in Spanish boro). Today we know that borax is the hydrated sodium borate, Na2B4O7.10H2O.

z Nitre, natron and alkalis Let us return to the Latin nitrum, which became nitre in French (attested in the 13th century), then borrowed by English, nitre, first in the same sense as in Latin, thus covering a great diversity of chemical compositions. Then other appellations appeared such as natron (attested in French around 1650), a variant of nitre that came via Spanish from the Arabic natrūn, to designate more particularly the salt coming from African salt lakes (such as Lake Natron in Tanzania), used to make glass: the word natron then became synonymous with sodium carbonate. In contrast to natron, the name nitre was gradually reserved for salts composed mainly of potassium nitrate, until nitre became synonymous with potassium nitrate. This explains the adoption of the radical nitr- for nitric acid and its chemical family.

133

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

To add to the confusion, products also called nitrum by Pliny were obtained from plants and their ashes, including coastal plants named in Late Latin soda or kali, names of Arabic origin, as will be discussed in the next section. These products consisted mainly of sodium and potassium carbonates, formerly known ➜ Saltpetre was produced in a nitrary (from the Latin nitraria), which was filled with as alkalis, and, in the early decaying plant material mixed with animal dung. Germany (~ 1580). 19 th   century, there were Wikipedia, license, by-sa-3.0, Mcapdevilla. two schools for naming the corresponding metals: the English chemist Davy, having isolated the metals by electrolysis, created in 1808 the two names sodium, from the Late Latin soda, and potassium, from the English potash (pot + ash), while in German, the chemist Klaproth preferred to name sodium Natrium, from natron, and potassium Kalium, from kali. These somewhat contradictory names reflect the confusion that has long reigned in the names of these minerals, to which must be added that of saltpetre.

z The salt of stone? Since time immemorial, a kind of mineral efflorescence has been collected from the damp walls of caves and cellars of houses, offering the same uses as nitre. Named in Greek aphronitron, i.e., “foam of nitre”, this product was called in Late Latin salpetrae, meaning “salt of stone”, hence saltpetre, the name of the powdered product that was used as a fertilizer or, mixed with sulphur and coal, as an explosive, viz, gunpowder. This saltpetre is mainly potassium nitrate, where nitrogen comes from rainwater (lightning produces nitrogen oxides in the upper atmosphere) and still more from the droppings of livestock reared near houses, or more specifically in some caves, from bat droppings, known as guano.

134

The salts of the Earth

A building intended for the production of saltpetre, or for its transformation into explosives, was then called a saltpetre factory, in French, salpêtrière. The one in Paris, created under Louis  XIII, was replaced in 1656 by a hospice which became, after multiple transformations, the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital. We can also mention the Salpêtrière cave, where saltpetre was once produced, near the Pont du Gard, not far from Nîmes, in the south of France.

z Carbonated epilogue? Today, we can clearly distinguish between soda (NaOH), sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) and its bicarbonate (NaHCO3), potash (KOH) and potassium nitrate (KNO3), terms that have replaced more or less ambiguous names from the past, such as nitre, natron, soda ash, nitrated potash, alkali, saltpetre... But some old words die hard, and this explains the name given today to flavoured soft drinks, soda. This term comes from the English soda water, for carbonated water obtained with sodium bicarbonate (called in Old English soda bicarbonate).

➜ Lake

Natron in Tanzania. As the name suggests, natron (sodium carbonate) is found in this lake.

135

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

2

Minerals in plants zeolite, soda, potash, lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K) and alkali metals

Natural or artificial zeolites are minerals that make up a particular group of aluminosilicates. Their name is derived from the element -lite, from the Greek word lithos, “stone”, from which also the name lithium comes, which will lead us to alkali metals. But first let’s see what zeo- means. ➜ The crystalline structure of zeolites has

a network of nano-sized channels and cavities, hence their other name, molecular sieve (right: basic structure of a zeolite).

z The “boiling stone”

The Swedish chemist Axel Cronstedt, the discoverer of nickel in 1751 (cf. Ch. 3, Section 5), presented a publication in 1756 that begins as follows: “Among the mineral substances that I had the opportunity to collect, there is one which, when examined with the aid of fire, shows phenomena that distinguish it from all known species”. He notes that “this stone, when exposed to the flame of the enameller’s lamp, swells and bubbles...” And he concludes: “I thought I should name this stone Zeolite [in Swedish], to distinguish it from the others”. The author did not take the trouble to explain the origin of Zeolite, considering that his colleagues would easily recognize, next to the element -lite, “stone”, the Greek zeô, “I boil”, from the verb zein, “to boil”. All languages have adopted this Swedish word, as it is in English zeolite, slightly adapted in German Zeolith, in Spanish zeolita, and in French in two variants, zéolite or zéolithe. Etymologically speaking, we prefer the form -lithe, closer to Greek, and quite distinct from the suffix-ite of mineralogical names (such as graphite) or salts (such as nitrite from nitrous acid). 136

Minerals in plants

In addition to the two spellings, French dictionaries have long hesitated for the gender of zéolit(h)e, and it is the feminine that is finally retained today. But of course this debate is particularly vain and fruitless in English.

z From zeolite to lithium A student of Berzelius, Arfvedson, discovered lithium in 1817 from a mineral found on the island of Utö, south of the Stockholm archipelago: petalite (= petal- + -ite, from the Greek petalon, “vegetable leaf”, hence “plate”, because this stone is easily cleaved into plates). This new metal turns out to be alkaline, like sodium and potassium, and Berzelius named it lithium, to remind us that it had been “discovered in the mineral kingdom, while the other two had been discovered in the vegetable kingdom”. Indeed, we will see that sodium and potassium were discovered from plants. For the etymology of lithium, it is sometimes indicated: from the Greek lithos, “stone”. This is true, but ➜ Petalite LiAl(Si4O10) is the historical incomplete, and even disturbing because source of lithium. Wikipedia, license by-sa-2.5, almost all metals have been discovered in EuricoZimbres. a mineral: this is the general case. Sodium and potassium are two exceptions, and it is only in relation to these two exceptional metals that lithium itself is exceptional, “the general case can be considered as a non-exceptional exception”, said the exceptional, i.e., atypical, French author, Boris Vian.

z From stone to plants In 1808, the English chemist Humphry Davy named sodium and potassium the metals he had isolated (by electrolysis) from soda and potash. He derived potassium from the word potash, itself from pot, “vessel”, and ash, from which also comes its name in French, potasse. Davy derived sodium from the Late Latin soda, which referred to both plants growing 137

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

on the shores of the sea, like saltwort, and the substance derived from their ashes. Hence soda in the chemical sense, in French soude, which designates also the saltwort. The word soda is of Arabic origin, and is related to the Late Latin sodanum, “remedy against migraine”, the Arabic sudā meaning “migraine”, probably in reference to the beneficial effect of the bicarbonate present in these plants. These plants were also called in Arabic qalî, and together with the article, al-qalî, hence alkali, the name given to the basic salts extracted from vegetable ashes, and the adjective alkaline. This term qalî relates to the verb meaning Column 1 “to grill” in Arabic. On the other hand, the term natron referred to a natural sodium carbonate found in the deposits of salt lakes. As noted in the previous section, the German chemist Klaproth chose the name Natrium (from natron) for sodium and Kalium for potassium, although natural alkalis generally contained both sodium and potassium. The choice of Klaproth was authoritative because the international symbols for sodium and potassium are Na and K, their names in Esperanto are natrio and kalio, and in medicine, a deficiency in the blood of these two metals is called hyponatraemia and hypokalaemia respectively!

➜ Left:

1

H

hydrogen 3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium 19

K

potassium 37

Rb

rubidium 55

Cs

caesium 87

Fr

francium

common saltwort (Salsola soda), right: prickly saltwort (Salsola kali).Linnaeus classified the saltworts in the genus Salsola, from the Latin salsus, “salty”. Wikipedia, license cc-by-sa-3.0, Luigi Rignanese. cc-by-sa-3.0, Julio Reis. 138

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English

French

Spanish

German

Chemical symbol

lithium

lithium

litio

Lithium

Li

sodium

sodium

sodio

Natrium

Na

potassium

potassium

potasio

Kalium

K

z Alkaline epilogue Lithium, sodium and potassium are the three best known alkaline metals. In 1861, rubidium and caesium were added to them, named after the colour of a characteristic spectral line (cf. Ch. 5, Section 3), and much later, in 1939, francium, named later after the nationality of its discoverer, Margerite Perey (cf. Ch. 4). The alkali metals, surmounted by hydrogen, form column 1 of the Periodic Table. Hydrogen seems to have no place here, but its association with nitrogen in the form NH4+ has the chemical properties of an alkaline metal ion. As we saw in the last section of Ch. 3, Davy is again the source of this observation and the very name ammonium. The ancient name alkali was a good account of this vision since we knew volatile alkali (ammonia), mineral alkali (soda) and vegetable alkali (potash).

➜ Like

saltworts, salicornias (here Salicornia europeana) are halophilic plants, whose ashes are rich in sodium and potassium. Wikipedia, license cc-by-sa-3.0, Marco Schmidt.

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3

The mantle of the Earth quartz, flint, silica, silicon (Si), silicone, alum, alumina and aluminium (Al)

The names quartz in English and in French, cuarzo in Spanish, are borrowed from the German Quarz, with the same meaning, attested in the 14th  century in the mining regions of Germany. Quarz is probably a deformation of Querg, an ancient variant of Zwerg, “dwarf”1, in reference to the goblin of Germanic ➜ Quartz, or rock crystal, consists of crystalline mythology that haunted the silica (SiO2). underground mines, the kobold, whose name was given to cobalt, and indirectly to nickel (cf. Ch. 3), and then probably also to quartz, one of the most beautiful minerals that miners could find.

z From water frozen into ice... to rock crystals The expression rock crystal dates back to antiquity since Pliny the Elder already called this mineral crystallus, a name that also referred to ice. The Latin crystallus is itself a borrowing from the Greek krustallos, first the name of ice, from the Greek kruos, “cold” (cf. the element cryo-), then by metaphor the name of rock crystal. The semantic evolution was thus: ice, then the rock crystal that resembles it, then, beyond quartz, any crystal in mineralogy. Then, lead glass was named

1. Kluge, Friedrich and Seebold, Elmar, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, de Gruyter, Berlin, 1989, sous Quarz. 140

Minerals in plants

crystal, which has the transparency and brilliance of the most beautiful mineralogical crystals. Quartz was also called vitrifiable earth, because it was used since ancient times to make glass (in Latin vitrum).

➜ Ice

crystals. Etymologically, ice crystal is a pleonasm, while rock crystal is a paradox!

z From quartz to silicon In the Method of Chemical Nomenclature of 1787, the authors decided to “substitute the word silica for quartz, and for vitrifiable earth, leaving the word silex [flint in English] to represent the already highly composed species from which gun stones are made”. This text thus creates the word silica from silex, silicis, the Latin name for flint. Indeed, it was known that quartz was the purest and best crystallized form of the oxide of a new element, this oxide being the essential component of flint. This new element was not obtained by Berzelius until 1824, and it was not until the 1830’s that the correct chemical formula, SiO2, was established for silica, according to which the English chemist Davy had proposed in 1808 the name silicium, with the -ium ending of a metal name. This name was adopted in most languages, but not in English where, at the instigation of another English chemist, Th. Thomson, silicon being not classified as a metal but as a metalloid, the name silicon was preferred, on the model of carbon and boron. But later on, organic compounds containing oxygen and silicon were discovered, 141

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first named Silikon in German, hence silicone in French and in English, where confusion with silicon should be avoided. Latin

French

Spanish

English

German

silex, silicis

silex

sílex

flint

Feuerstein

-

silice

sílice

silica

Kieselerde

-

silicium

silicio

silicon

Silizium

-

silicone

silicona

silicone

Silikon

➜ Nota:

in German, Feuerstein = fire stone, Kieselerde = pebble earth.

z Aluminium, the etymological companion of silicon Silica and alumina are the two main constituents of the Earth’s crust, often in the form of aluminosilicates, hence the name sial (Si + Al) sometimes given to this part of the Earth. It turns out that the etymologies of silicon and aluminium have analogies: – silicon goes back to the name ➜ Silicon wafer on which etched chips each contain millions of transistors. of flint, silex in Latin, aluminium goes back to the name of another mineral mined since antiquity, alum, from Latin alumen, aluminis (alun in French), the main constituent of which is aluminium sulphate; – it is in the Nomenclature of 1787 that the term silica appears, and that the name alumina is also mentioned, identified, as was silica, with the oxide of a new element; – finally, in 1808, Davy proposed the names silicium (replaced in English by silicon as said here above) and alumium, then very quickly aluminium, which was adopted in almost all languages, even in English this time since it was unquestionably a metal, although more often under the aluminum variant in the United States. Another common point between these two elements is their technological importance: aluminium in aircraft construction, silicon in photovoltaics 142

Minerals in plants

and above all in semiconductors in the world of computers and information technology, as the name Silicon Valley demonstrably shows.

z Latinist epilogue The expression in silico appeared around 1990 in English language publications, to qualify a biological result obtained by numerical modelling, i.e., “in silicon”, and not in vivo, “in the living”, nor in vitro, “in glass (test tubes or Petri dishes)”. In vivo and in vitro, it is indeed Latin, vivo and vitro being forms (the ablative) of vivum and vitrum, but in silico is a neologism, not obvious for an English-speaker, for whom silicon seems to come from a Latin silico, onis (as carbon is formed on the Latin carbo, onis), and then the Latin expression would be in silicone (silicone, ablative of silico, siliconis), which should not be taken as in silicone in English! Now a French-speaker would logically derive the expression in silicio from silicium. In short, we must assume a scientific Latin word silicum, “silicon”: the expression in silico is then logically constructed, as in vitro on the Latin vitrum, “glass” (where we already find, ironically, a lot of silicon!).

➜ In silico studies

are carried out on a computer, whose active components are based on silicon. 143

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4

The sugars of life xylose, lyxose, arabinose and ribose

The sugar called ribose was discovered in 1891 by the German chemist Emil Fischer, who was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (the second in history). This great scientist also showed originality in the way he named the molecules he discovered, particularly in the field of sugars.

➜ Different

forms of ribose: D-ribose, L-ribose and a cyclic form.

Before coming to ribose itself, let us consider the simpler case of the isomers2 of xylose.

z From xylose to lyxose, a metathesis Xylose has been identified since the 1850’s. It is a sugar derived from wood polysaccharides, hence its name, from the Greek xulon, “wood”. In 1896, Fischer showed that xylonic acid (German Xylonsäure) could be isomerized to give a new organic acid, the positions of an OH and an H being exchanged on the same carbon:

2. Two molecules are said to be isomers when they are composed of the same atoms arranged differently. The transformation of one into the other is called isomerization. 144

Minerals in plants

HOCH2

OH

H

OH

C

C

C

H

OH

H

COOH

HOCH2

OH

H

H

C

C

C

H

OH

OH

COOH

New acid named: lyxonic acid

Xylonic acid

To designate this new acid, Fischer created the word lyxonic acid (German Lyxonsäure) and named “the new sugar, lyxose”. The exchange of position of the OH and H on the molecule is thus symbolized by that of the letters X and L in the names, XYLOSE and LYXOSE. This inversion of two letters during the evolution of a word is a common form of what is called metathesis in linguistics. A classic example is that of Latin PARABOLA, “comparison, parable”, becoming in English PALAVER, in French PALABRE. And to come back to the field of polysaccharides, we can also mention the name of a plant, the great elecampane, which goes from the Greek HELENIUM to the Latin INULA, with an inversion of L and N (cf. Ch. 3). This term metathesis, from the Greek metathesis, “transposition, change”, was already used by Greek rhetoricians, and chemists have adopted it, when the positions of two atoms (or groups of atoms) of two molecules are exchanged during a reaction. This definition does not exactly apply to isomerization, but almost, if we consider it as a kind of intramolecular metathesis. The case of ribose is a little different.

z From arabinose to ribose Arabinose is a sugar derived from gum arabic, which is secreted by several species of African acacias, a resin that has been exploited for various uses since Ancient Egypt. The oxidation of arabinose gives arabinic acid, which Fischer had isomerized as early as 1891, thus obtaining a new acid that he named in German Ribonsäure, explaining in a slightly sibylline way: “this word is created from the letters of Arabinose, which are camouflaged in it”. From there he created in German the name Ribose (used in all languages, ribose, ribosa...) and RIB(OSE) thus includes letters of ARABIN(OSE), but a little camouflaged. As we have just seen,

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Fischer will later adopt a more transparent approach for lyxose, derived from xylose. HOCH2

OH

H

OH

C

C

C

H

OH

H

COOH

H

H

C

C

C

H

OH

OH

COOH

New acid named: ribonic acid

Arabinic acid ➜ Gum

HOCH2

OH

arabic.

z The second life of ribose In the context of polysaccharides, ribose is a much less well-known sugar than glucose or fructose... But in molecular biology, the same ribose (precisely D-ribose) occupies a very important place because it is the sugar that enters into the composition of nucleic acids: ribose and deoxyribose form, with phosphoric acid and five nitrogenous bases, the nucleotides of DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid) and RNA (RiboNucleic Acid).

➜ Example

of nucleotide: Adenosine monophosphate is an RNA nucleotide formed from ribose, phosphoric acid and adenine.

The structure of the nucleotides was discovered by the American biologist Phoebus Levene, who, from 1907 onwards, headed the Division of Chemistry at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, which was founded in New York in 1901. Levene’s 1909 papers raised ribose from the status of just any sugar to that of one of the most essential building blocks of the living kingdom.

146

Minerals in plants

z Epilogue and false etymology Is it because Fischer didn’t clearly justify the word ribose or because the biological role of ribose appeared so extraordinary, that in several recent books on molecular biology, we can read: ribose comes from the initials of the Rockefeller Institute of Biochemistry (“RIB ose”)? In fact, this assertion is legendary because, in his 1909 publication, Levene does not claim for his institute the authorship of the word ribose, which he uses, regularly, with reference to Fischer’s publication of 1891. Thus in RNA, the R is indeed that of aRabic and not that of Rockefeller! One can nevertheless wonder how such a legend could be born and perpetuate itself until today.

➜ Acacia nilotica,

a producer of gum arabic.

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5

The alphabet of the living kingdom urea, purine, adenine, guanine, pyrimidine, cytosine, thymine and uracil

In a 1799 publication, the French chemists Fourcroy and Vauquelin named urea the main organic component of urine. This word urea appears rea (or carbamide, left) comes from protein as a derivative of urine (from ➜ Udegradation reactions. Uric acid (here, the Latin urina), a so-called keto- form, right) comes from DNA and RNA degradation reactions. regressive derivative because it results from the suppression of the element -ine. In the same publication, the authors derive from ur(ea), in its usual meaning this time, the adjective uric to designate the uric acid also present in urine. Synthetic urea is an important chemical today, both as a fertilizer and as a raw material in organic chemistry. The German chemist Wöhler was responsible for the first synthesis of urea in 1828: a revolution at a time when it was realized that it was possible to access “molecules of life” through pure chemical synthesis. And we will see that uric acid takes us even further into the world of living beings.

z From uric acid to purine In 1884, the German chemist Emil Fischer showed that the uric acid molecule has deep analogies with two of the four bases that make up DNA: adenine, from the Greek adên, adenos, “gland”, because this molecule was extracted from a gland, the pancreas, and guanine, from guano, from Quechua huano, 148

The alphabet of the living kingdom

because this molecule was extracted from bird droppings used for centuries as a fertilizer by Peruvians. Fischer also found analogies between uric acid and the alkaloids characteristic of coffee, tea and chocolate.

We see that all these structures derive from the same basic molecule, called purine (Purin in German), a word that Fischer explains as a “combination of the words purum and uricum”3, which means that the molecule of purine is a sort of “pure” form (without oxygen) of the molecule of uric acid. It is known that Fischer later showed linguistic innovation by naming ribose and xylose (see previous section). Here, this explanation is already astonishing because purine could very well be derived only from the Latin purum, “pure”, but it emphasizes the role of uricum, which provides the link with uric acid, hence a sort of portmanteau word: purine = purum + uricum + ine.

z The four “letters” of DNA Then two of the four bases of DNA, adenine and guanine, are said to be purine bases. The other two, cytosine (from cyto-, “cell”, from the Greek kutos, “cavity”) and thymine (found in calf thymus), are called pyrimidine bases, because they are built on another “pure” molecule, pyrimidine.

3. Fischer, Emil, Untersuchungen in der Puringruppe (1882-1906), Springer, Berlin, 1907, 600 p., p. 14. 149

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The name of pyridine, which has one nitrogen atom in the cycle, comes from the Greek pur, “fire”, because this substance was obtained in 1851 from pyrolysis of animal matter. Then, pyrimidine was discovered in 1886, with two nitrogen atoms in the cycle instead of one, and its name was formed on pyri(dine) + (a)mid + -ine.

Adenine ➜ The

Thymine

Guanine

Cytosine

4 “letters” of DNA are: ATGC. A associates with T and G with C.

z From thymine to uracil Three of the four bases of RNA are identical to those of DNA: the two purine bases and cytosine. On the other hand, the thymine in DNA is replaced in RNA by uracil (U instead of T), the name of which contains the ur(ea) radical. It is indeed from urea and ethyl acetoacetate that the German chemist Behrend obtained in 1886 an isomer of thymine, which he named methyluracil, where -uracil = ur(ea) + ac(eto acetate) + suffix-il. Uracil was then isolated, with the structure of thymine or methyluracil, but without the methyl (-CH3) group.

150

The alphabet of the living kingdom

English and Spanish use the word urea, in French urée. In German the usual names are Harnstoff, “urea” (Harn, “urine”), and Harnsäure, “uric acid”, but the ur- radical is used in composition, for example in Purin, Uracil, or in Uräthan, “urethane”.

z Polymeric epilogue Polyurethanes are widely used as foam, fibre, plastic or resin in adhesives and paints. The word urethane appeared in 1833 in a publication by the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas, who wrote about this substance: “It can finally be represented by carbonic ether and urea united atom to atom”. It was in fact a molecule containing the internal radical -NHCOO-, combining the structure of urea, H-NHCO-NH2, and that of an ether, R-O-R'. The word urethane is therefore composed of three parts: ur(ea) + eth(er) + suffix -ane. From the world of the living, we return to the world of the “synthetic”, through the interplay of molecules... and language.

➜ If

purine and pyrimidine bases make up the alphabet of the living, DNA is a novel of the living, where the genes are paragraphs.

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6

Eclectic names valine, valeric acid and pivalic acid

Among the twenty or so natural amino acids that make up proteins, valine was one of the last to be named, by Emil Fischer, the same chemist to whom we already owe the names of ribose and lyxose, or purine. Starting with valine, we will also look at the names of the isomers of valeric acid, which reserve a surprise in the epilogue.

➜ L-valine:

(CH3)2-CH2-CH(NH2)-COOH, with 5 carbons…

z The name valine restores orthodoxy In 1906, Fischer studied the isovaleric α-amino acid and named it in German Valin, together with the corresponding radical Valyl, hence valine for the amino acid as well as in French, and valyl for the corresponding five-carbon radical. These names were obviously derived from that of the isovaleric acid, (CH3)2CH-CH2-COOH, a fivecarbon organic acid. This decision was not self-evident at the time, because since the middle of the 19th century the four-carbon radical (CH3)2CH-CH2-, resulting from the decomposition of isovaleric acid, was wrongly named valyl, but should have been recognized as butyl. Fischer therefore ended this misuse of the word valyl, considering that it should not lead to confusion with existing trade names (from the late pharmaceutical company Hoechst in particular). Since then, the valyl radical has been used to designate a pentyl, with five carbons. But all this does not say where the name (iso)valeric acid comes from. It has a botanical origin.

152

Eclectic names

z The valerian is a medicinal plant known since antiquity In 1833, the adjective valeric (first valerianic) was given in German (Valeriansäure) by the chemist Trommsdorf, who extracted isovaleric acid from the roots of the valerian, specifying that it was the medicinal valerian.

➜ Medicinal

valerian Valeriana officinalis since Linnaeus in 1753.

There is a wide variety of valerians since Linnaeus described sixteen species in the genus Valeriana, of which nearly three hundred species are known today. Dioscorides already distinguished several species under the Greek name nardos, a name of Semitic origin, borrowed by the Latin nardus, hence the word nard which is present in dictionaries but supplanted in common usage by valerian. And the latter name derives from the Late Latin valeriana, after the Latin name Valeria of a Roman province located about where Hungary is today, where this plant was very common. Even if over the ages there has undoubtedly been some confusion between neighbouring species, it is certain that the root of the medicinal valerian has, as its name indicates, curative virtues, particularly sedative and anxiolytic. These properties, recognized since antiquity, are moreover not directly due to isovaleric acid, but they explain why chemists were interested in valerian, and perhaps also why the name valeric prevailed over another name previously given to the same acid. 153

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

z From dolphin to valerian As early as 1817, Chevreul had extracted from dolphin oil an acid that he named delphinic, then phocenic, from the Greek phôkaina, “porpoise”, through the naturalist Latin phocoena. This acid was identical to the isovaleric acid found in 1833 by Trommsdorf but, despite the chronology, it was the name of plant origin which has prevailed in use, including for the isomers subsequently synthesized: normal valeric acid, CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-COOH, as well as its methylethylacetic isomer, CH3-CH2-CH(CH3)-COOH.

➜ Erlenmeyer flask,

in German Erlenmeyerkolben.

These acids were synthesized in 1869 by Emil Erlenmeyer, better known to have been the father (and the eponym) of the famous Erlenmeyer flask, in French erlenmeyer, which he presented at a pharmacy congress in 1857.

z Pictorial epilogue Finally, it was in 1873 that Charles Friedel4 synthesized from pinacolone, (CH3)3C-COCH3, the fourth and last isomer of valeric acid, trimethylacetic acid, (CH3)3C-COOH, which he named pivalic by combining the elements pi- of pinacolone and val- of valeric acid. But where does the name pinacolone come from? From the name of the pine, like pinene for example? Not at all, far from it. Pinacolone belongs to a chemical family, the first representative of which was named in German Pinakon, from the Greek pinax, pinakos, “board, wooden tablet for writing or painting”, because the crystals of this substance are in the form of small square tablets, each with its own individual shape. It took a little imagination to find this Greek word, which in English is only found in pinacotheca, in French pinacothèque, the name sometimes given to a painting museum. It is true that the word Pinakothek is more popular in German thanks to the large pinacothecas in Munich or Berlin. 4. Friedel, Charles and Silva, R.-D., Sur un nouvel isomère de l’acide valérianique, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, t. 77, 1873, p. 48. 154

Eclectic names THE TWENTY ELEMENTS OF PROTEINS The names of the 20 amino acids that make up proteins have various origins: – the name of a plant: from the name of valerian comes valine (Val), and from the name of asparagus (in Latin asparagus) comes asparagine (Asn), as well as the name of aspartic acid (Asp); – the name of a vegetable protein: from the name of gluten (from the Latin gluten, “glue”, from where also the word glue) comes glutamine  (Gln) and glutamic acid (Glu); – the name of a flavour: the amino acid from gelatin is first called gelatin sugar, because of its sweetening power, and Berzelius prefers the name glycine (Gly); – the name of an animal protein: from the name sericin, protein of silk (in Latin sericum), comes the name serine (Ser), and from the name casein, protein of cheese (in Latin caseus), comes the name tyrosine (Tyr) (but through the Greek turos, “cheese”), and indirectly the name of lysine (Lys), found by hydrolysis of casein; – the name of an animal organ: via the name of the bladder (in Greek kustis) comes that of cystine – found in bladder stones – hence cysteine (Cys); – the name of a general property: tryptophan (Trp) appears (Greek phainein, “to appear”) under the action of trypsin (from the Greek thruptein, “to soften”) involved in digestion; histidine (His) is involved in the composition of tissues (from the Greek histos, “tissue”); – the name of a colour: nitrate of arginine (Arg) (from the Latin argentum, “silver”) resemble silver nitrate; leucine (Leu) (from the Greek leukos, “white”) and isoleucine (Ile) come from the name of a white substance linked to these amino acids; threonine (Thr) comes from the name of a sugar, threose, close to erythrose (from the Greek eruthros, “red”) because of a red colouring. And all the other amino acids have a name that is purely “chemical”: B chain – alanine (Ala), from al(dehyde), 30 amino acids hence phenylalanine  (Phe), the methionine  (Met), from meth(ylene) + thion, “sulphur”, and finally proline (Pro), whose name is again due to the linguistic A chain boldness of Emil Fischer. The 21 amino acids latter did not hesitate to replace, “to abbreviate”, the full name of the amino acid he discovered in 1905, in German Pyrrolidincarbonsäure abbreviated to Prolin, or in English pyrrolidinecarbonic ➜ Insulin and its 51 amino acids, including 17 different and 4 times the valine. acid, becoming proline.

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7

Strange gases hidden in the air... helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe) and radon (Rn)

The 6 noble gases, also known as rare gases, form the last column of the Periodic Table. They have similar chemical properties, but also have similar names, such as xenon, argon, krypton and neon. Indeed, it was the same English chemist, William Ramsay, who discovered and named these four elements. Having also worked on helium and radon, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 for his work on noble gases.

z Helium, at first an extra-terrestrial element During the solar eclipse of 1868, astrophysicists detected an intense yellow line in the spectrum of the solar corona, first mistaken for sodium, then finally attributed to a new element, therefore unknown at the time on Earth. Logically, this element was then named helium, from the Greek Hêlios, “Sun”. And it was only in 1882 that helium was detected in a volcanic rock, and then in 1895 that Ramsey managed to isolate it from a uranium ore: the unique case of an element discovered in space before it was on Earth. If alchemists associated the Sun with gold, a noble metal, the chemists have associated ➜ The solar corona, in which helium was first detected. it with a noble gas, helium, thus establishing one more correspondence between a star and a chemical element. 156

Strange gases hidden in the air...

z Argon, the archetype of inert gas In fact, when he discovered helium, Ramsay was looking for the gas he had isolated the previous year (1894) in the uranium ore. As this gas appeared to be inert, unable to associate with other atoms, he named it argon, from the Greek adjective argos, “inactive”, itself formed from the a- privative and ergon, “action, work” (hence energy...).

z Krypton, well hidden in argon It is again Ramsay who, with the help of collaborators including Morris Travers, discovered in 1898 three other noble gases by distillation of argon (thus impure). He first discovered the krypton from its hiding place in argon, and named it from the Greek kruptos, “hidden, secret” (cf. the crypt of a church or the encryption of a document). Then, at the same time, he discovered a lighter gas that he named neon, from the Greek neos, “new”, and a heavier one that he named xenon, from the Greek xenos, first of all “foreign”, hence “stranger”, as in the present case.

z Xenon, stranger with its unexpected blue colour... What caught the researchers’ attention was the blue colour of the emission spectrum of this new gas, so they looked for names evoking “blue”. For example, the name could have been *cyanon, from the Greek kuanous, “blue”, but as this radical was already used for the word cyanide, Ramsay did not accept it. Finally, he came up with the idea of naming this element xenon, from the Greek xenos, “stranger”, i.e., “unknown, strange”. This reflected the unexpected nature of the blue ➜ Xenon lighting, unexpectedly blue. colour emitted by xenon, and on the other hand, the xenos root had never been used in chemistry5. 5. Travers, Morris, The Discovery of Rare Gases, E. Arnold & Co, London, 1928, 128 p., p. 106. 157

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z Neon, the new kid on the block The most astonishing name of the series is certainly neon, which simply means “new”, which is truly tautological for any element, necessarily new at the time of its discovery. How could Ramsay have chosen such a general name? The answer is in an anecdote, reported by his collaborator Travers as follows6. Ramsay’s son Willie, about thirteen years old, came to the laboratory and, taking an interest in the work being done, suggested that the last gas discovered should be called novum, meaning “new” in Latin. Ramsay retained the idea, a priori ingenuous, of his young son, but in the Greek form of neon, as for the other noble gases already named.

Column 18 2

He

helium 10

Ne neon 18

Ar

argon 36

Kr

krypton 54

Xe

xenon 86

Rn

radon

z The 18th column has come out of the shadows... The problem with all these new elements was that there was no room for them in any free space in the then current Periodic Table, which as yet had only 17 columns. The existence of an 18th column had not been foreseen by Mendeleev or anyone else. It was Ramsay and Rayleigh who proposed it to accommodate helium and argon, then very soon neon, krypton and xenon. Initially Mendeleev did not accept the idea, but finally acknowledged in a letter of 1902 that the 18th column was justified, and even constituted “a glorious confirmation of the general character of the application of the periodic law”7.

z Radon, a noble and radioactive gas The heaviest of the noble gases is also the only one that is radioactive. In 1908, Ramsay and the English chemist Gray proposed for this element the name niton, from the Latin nitens, “brilliant”, because of the luminescence it can generate. But other names proposed by different teams were in competition and it was the name Radon, proposed by the German chemist G. C. Schmidt in 1915, which was finally officially adopted in 1923. This was after the death in 1916 of Ramsay, who 6. Travers, Morris, The Discovery of Rare Gases, E. Arnold & Co, London, 1928, 128 p., p. 96. 7. Scerri, Eric, Le tableau périodique, Son histoire et sa signification, EDP Sciences, Paris, 2011, p. 144. 158

Strange gases hidden in the air...

would surely have opposed this choice since radon is based on the Latin radius, “ray, radiation”, already used in 1898 by Pierre and Marie Curie to name radium.

z A fish in the epilogue

➜ Neon

is a small fresh water fish from South America.

Ultimately, a child’s word is the origin of neon, which is certainly the most familiar name for a noble gas, since any tubular lighting, whether it contains neon or other gases, is commonly called a neon tube. And for aquarium enthusiasts, neon is also a small fish with brightly coloured lines.

Wikipedia cc-by-3.0, H. Krisp.

➜ The

true colour of a glow tube filled with neon gas.

Wikipedia, license cc-by-sa-2.5, Pslawinski. 159

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

8

When it comes to physics actinium (Ac) and the 14 other actinides, rutherfordium (Rf) and other transactinides

Just below the 15 lanthanides we find the 15 actinides, elements 89 to 103. These are metals that are all radioactive, and even artificial beyond uranium (element 92). 89

Ac

actinium

90

Th

thorium

91

92

protactinium

uranium

Pa

U

93

Np

neptunium

94

Pu

plutonium

95

Am

americium

96

Cm curium

97

Bk

berkelium

98

Cf

99

Es

californium einsteinium

100

Fm

fermium

101

Md

mendelevium

102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

Lr

Uranium and its neighbours, neptunium (93) and plutonium (94), as well as thorium (90), appeared with their mythological names in Ch. 3. The other actinides are discussed in the following pages.

z In the wake of Pierre and Marie Curie Their research on radioactive elements earned Pierre and Marie Curie the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Henri Becquerel, the discoverer of radioactivity itself. Then the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Marie Curie for the discovery of polonium and radium in pitchblende, a uranium ore. And it was in the continuation of this work that the French chemist Debierne isolated a new radioactive element which he named in 1900 actinium (Ac), from the Greek aktis, aktinos, “ray, radiation”: the same etymological meaning for actinium, from the Greek, as for radium, from the Latin radius, “ray, radiation”. Later on, German and English researchers will discover, by disintegration of uranium, the element  91, which will be named in 1920 protactinium (Pa), from the Greek prôtos, “first”, because its own disintegration produces actinium. From then on, discoveries of new actinides were the results of nuclear physics, starting with neptunium and plutonium (cf. Ch. 3), identified in the 1940s during the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. 160

When it comes to physics

z The United States taking over from Europe All transuranic actinides were discovered between 1940 and 1960, mainly at the University of California at Berkeley, where the American physicist Glenn Seaborg played a leading role8. His name is attached to plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium and californium, and he was awarded the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Edwin McMillan, the discoverer of neptunium, also at Berkeley. The pre-eminence of this Californian university, and more widely of the United States, in this period was reflected in the names of several elements: – for element 95, americium derived from America, a nod & wink from Seaborg, who named the element just below europium (element 63) in the Periodic Table, as if to mark the end of a European era; –  for element 98, californium after the name of California, and for element 97, berkelium after Berkeley.

z Names honouring great scientists who have passed away Naming an element after a scientist was almost never done before the 1940s. The only case is that of gadolinium, named by Lecoq de Boisbaudran in reference to the name of the Finnish chemist Gadolin. At least if we believe Boisbaudran, who claimed to have named gallium from Gallia, “Gaul”, and not from his name Lecoq, gallus in Latin (cf. Ch. 4, Section 2). But in the field of transuranides the discoverers made extensive use of the names of recently deceased colleagues, all of whom were winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry, except for Alfred Nobel himself, since Nobel Prize started after his death, and Mendeleev, who just missed it: – for element 96, curium honours Pierre and Marie Curie; –  for elements  99 and 100, einsteinium and fermium honour Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, who played a major role in the Manhattan Project. These elements, named in 1955, were detected in the residues from the explosion of the first H-bomb in 1952; 8. Seaborg, Glenn, Terminology of the Transuranium Elements, Terminology, vol. 1(2), 1994, p. 229-252. 161

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

– for element 101, mendelevium finally allows Mendeleev to appear, posthumously, in his table, a belated compensation for him not being awarded a Nobel Prize; – for element 102, nobelium, by which Swedish physicists have featured their compatriot Alfred Nobel; – and finally for element 103, lawrencium, the name formed on that of Ernest Lawrence, the inventor in 1930 of the cyclotron, without which all these developments of nuclear physics would not have been possible. The subject then became more complicated with the discovery of the transactinides. 104

Rf

rutherfordium

105

Db

dubnium

106

Sg

seaborgium

107

Bh

bohrium

108

Hs

hassium

109

Mt

110

Ds

111

Rg

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium

112

Cn

copernicium

113

114

nihonium

flerovium

Nh

Fl

115

116

117

moscovium

livermorium

tennessine

Mc

Lv

Ts

118

Og

oganesson

z The time of polemics From the 1960’s onwards, the Americans faced increasing competition, on one hand, from the nuclear research centre in Doubna, which had been decided by the USSR in 1946 and inaugurated in 1956, 125 km north of Moscow. On the other hand, more and more results were also obtained in Darmstadt in Germany. Elements 104 to 109, discovered from the 1960s to 1980s, often in several places at short intervals, all gave rise to controversy between rival teams, initially in the context of the Cold War. It was not until the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) arbitration in 1997 that the names of the new elements were recognized worldwide: – rutherfordium for element 104, in honour of Ernest Rutherford; – dubnium for element 105, after Doubna, north of Moscow; – seaborgium for element 106, honouring Glenn Seaborg, during his lifetime (he died in February 1999), which caused controversy, as it was against principle; – bohrium for 107, to honour the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, despite opposition from English-speakers who feared confusion with boron (while bor in Danish); – hassium for 108, from Hassia, the Latin name for Hesse, the German Land where Darmstadt is located; – and finally meitnerium for 109, in honour of Lise Meitner (18781968), the Austrian physicist, naturalized Swedish, who worked notably 162

When it comes to physics

with Otto Hahn on nuclear fission. This is the only element in the table that bears the name of a woman, curium being a mixed name, so to speak. For some observers, this compensated for the fact that Lise Meitner was not associated with the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Otto Hahn. In 2003/2004, IUPAC validated darmstadtium for element  110 and roentgenium for 111, according to Darmstadt, where these two elements were identified, and Wilhelm Roentgen, the German physicist who discovered X-rays. Then in 2009-2010 IUPAC validated copernicium for 112, also discovered in Darmstadt, and honouring Nicolaus Copernicus.

z The time of collaborations In 2011-2012, IUPAC validates flerovium for element 114, discovered in Doubna, named after the Russian physicist Georgy Florov, and livermorium for element 116, referring to the laboratory in Livermore, California, which cooperated with Doubna in the discovery of this element. Finally, in 2015-2016, IUPAC validated the last four known elements: – element 113, nihonium, from Nihon, the name of Japan, where this element was identified, at RIKEN, near Tokyo. It is the only “Asian” element in the table; –  element  115, moscovium, discovered in Dubna by an AmericanRussian team; – element 117, tennessine, named after the Tennessee location of the Oak Ridge Laboratory which collaborated with Dubna; – element 118, oganesson, discovered in Doubna, named after the Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian, born in 1933, who is, after Seaborg, the sole eponym alive of an element, without any controversy this time. Let’s mention here that lead (element 82) is the heaviest atom having at least one stable isotope. All elements after 82 are radioactive with halftime of disintegration of millions of years for bismuth (83), thorium (90) or uranium (92), but only 55  days for mendelevium (101), less than 11 seconds for elements heavier than bohrium (107) and eventually less than 1 millisecond for oganesson (118). 163

Chapter 6 – Explorers of the elements

z Geometrical epilogue We have now reached a remarkable point in the book: all 118 chemical elements known to date, of which only 90 are natural, have been covered. Their names have been explained, often providing information about the circumstances of their discovery. Curiously, element 118 is located at the bottom of column 18 of the noble gases, and that completes the Table, the base of which is thus to date perfectly rectangular! 1

18

1

2

H

hydrogen 3

Li

lithium 11

Na

sodium 19

K

potassium 37

Rb

rubidium 55

Cs

caesium 87

Fr

francium

He

2

13 atomic number

4

5

symbol

Be

B

name

beryllium

boron

12

13

Mg

magnesium 20

Ca

calcium

Al

3 21

Sc

scandium

38

39

strontium

yttrium

Sr

Y

56

Ba

22

23

titanium

vanadium

Ti 40

Zr

zirconium

Hf

hafnium

88

Ra

5

72

lanthanide

barium

radium

4

104 actinide

Rf

rutherfordium 57

La

lanthanum 89

Ac

actinium

➜ Spray

V

41

Nb

niobium 73

Ta

tantalum 105

Db

dubnium 58

Ce

cerium 90

Th

thorium

6 24

Cr

chromium 42

Mo

7 25

Mn

manganese 43

Tc

molybdenum technetium 74

W

tungsten 106

Sg

seaborgium 59

Pr

75

Re

rhenium 107

Bh

bohrium 60

Nd

8 26

Fe iron 44

Ru

ruthenium

91

92 uranium

Pa

U

27

45

108

61

Pm 93

Np

neptunium

46

Rh 77

Hs

Ni

nickel

rhodium

iridium

hassium

28

Co

76

Os

10

cobalt

osmium

praseodymium neodymium promethium

protactinium

9

Pd

palladium 78

Ir

Pt

platinum

109

110

Mt

Ds

11 29

Cu

copper 47

Ag silver 79

Au gold

111

Rg

meitnerium darmstadtium rœntgenium 63

62

Sm

samarium 94

Pu

Eu

europium 95

plutonium

Am

americium

64

Gd

gadolinium 96

Cm curium

12 30

Zn zinc 48

Cd

cadmium 80

Hg

mercury 112

Cn

copernicium 65

Tb

terbium 97

Bk

berkelium

aluminium 31

Ga

gallium 49

In

indium 81

Tl

thallium

14 6

C

carbon

15

16

phosphorus

sulphur

32

Ge

germanium 50

Sn tin

82

Pb lead

114 flerovium

66

Dy 98

Cf

8

O

oxygen

14

Si

113

dysprosium

7

N

nitrogen

16

silicon

nihonium

Nh

15

Fl 67

Ho

holmium 99

Es

californium einsteinium

P

33

As

arsenic 51

Sb

antimony 83

Bi

bismuth

S

34

Se

selenium

9

F

fluorine 17

Cl

chlorine 35

Br

bromine

52

53

tellurium

iodine

Te 84

Po

polonium

I

85

At

astatine

115

116

117

moscovium

livermorium

tennessine

Mc 68

Er

erbium 100

Fm

fermium

Lv 69

Tm

thulium 101

Md

mendelevium

of atoms and particles in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva. 164

17

Ts 70

Yb

ytterbium

helium 10

Ne neon 18

Ar

argon 36

Kr

krypton 54

Xe

xenon 86

Rn

radon 118

Og

oganesson 71

Lu

lutetium

102

103

nobelium

lawrencium

No

Lr

CHAPTER

In the intimacy of plants

7

Where botany is a source of inspiration 1 Wheat in the oven and in the mill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

168

2 The best and the worst of a seed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

172

3 A comforting tree. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

176

4 And here comes Jupiter again, with nuts!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

180

5 Lumber and firewood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

184

6 The tree which invented polystyrene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

188

7 The aromas of plants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

192

Chapter 7 – In the intimacy of plants

WHEN THE LANGUAGE OF PLANTS INSPIRES US Chemistry owes a lot to plants, which provide large quantities of organic substances. It even owes them a few elements: carbon (C), the first available form of which was charcoal, as well as sodium (Na) and potassium (K), isolated by Humphry Davy from the ashes of certain plants, and iodine (I), extracted by Courtois from seaweed. Plants are chemists Molecules of plant origin belong to several major chemical families: – sugars, or saccharides, discussed at length in Ch. 5 and 6, particularly in connection with the work of Emil Fischer; among these sugars, we have polysaccharide polymers (generally, slow-release sugars), such as inulin, seen in Ch. 3, derived from this large sort of yellow daisy, the great elecampane or, in this chapter, starch, which plays a considerable role in human nutrition; – alcohols, obtained by fermentation of vegetable sugars: ethyl alcohol, the best known of all, and methyl alcohol, obtained by distillation of wood, hence the names of methane and ethane in Ch. 1; – acids, the first of which is vinegar, as we saw in Ch. 5. Its Greek name, oxos, comes from oxus, which is at the origin of oxygen, and its Latin name, acetum, is at the origin of its German name, Essig. It is from Essigäther, “vinegar ether”, that the German chemist Leopold Gmelin created in 1848 the word ester (Essigäther), for the result of the equation: acid + alcohol ➝ ester + water – lipids: this name, from the Greek word lipos, “fat”, refers to esters of alcohols and of fatty acids, such as castor oil, discussed later in this chapter; – bases, also called alkalis when we refer to soda and potash, derived in earlier times from plants, as discussed in Ch. 6. Substances active on metabolism An alkaloid is a product of plant origin that has a strong physiological impact on humans. The name, which appeared in German (Alkaloid) in 1819, means “alkali-like”. It is in fact a nitrogenous molecule with basic properties. In Ch. 6, we encountered caffeine (in coffee and tea), theophylline (in tea) and theobromine (in chocolate), and now we will find quinine, a tonic – if there was one, this is it – discussed in this chapter.

166

The amazing history of element names

Other alkaloids are very well-known: – morphine, derived from the opium poppy (in Greek, opion, and according to Linnaeus, Papaver somniferum), where yet again we find Greek mythology: Morpheus, god of dreams, one of the thousand children of Hypnos, the god of sleep, himself a son of the Night; – cocaine from the coca (Amerindian name), a shrub grown in South America; – nicotine, the alkaloid of tobacco, which owes its name to ➜ Jean Nicot (1530-1604). Jean Nicot, both a diplomat and a scholar, who introduced tobacco to France and deserves two times to be present in this book since he was the father of the Thresor of the Francoyse language, both ancient and modern, published in 1606, posthumously. Real factories for molecules Other plant productions are remarkable: – walnut husks contain juglone, a molecule from the quinone family; – wood lignin is a kind of natural phenolic resin, so that phenol and synthetic phenolic resins will be discussed also in this chapter; – the resin of a tree, the liquidambar, is a kind of natural production of styrene, well known as a synthetic product. And at the end of this chapter we will find another family of molecules, the terpenes. Smells and conifers: terpenes Terpenes and polyterpenes are present in many plants (e.g., conifers), and are often responsible for their odour. These molecules are exploited in perfumery and are the active ingredients of essential oils (mint, Scots pine…).

➜ Essential

oils

167

Chapter 7 – In the intimacy of plants

1

Wheat in the oven and in the mill starch and amylase

Starch has been known in Europe since Greek and Roman antiquity, when it was used mainly to make bread and cakes.

➜ Starch

is a complex sugar.

z Do you need a millstone to produce starch? The Ancients did not: they obtained starch from wheat, whole grains of which were soaked in water, then pressed and dried in the sun. In this process the wheat was not milled, which explains the name of the product in Ancient Greek, amulon, formed with the privative prefix a- and the element -mulon, derived from mulê, “millstone”: starch was by definition the product obtained “without a millstone”, as opposed to flour. This Greek name amulon becomes in classical Latin amylum, then in Medieval Latin amidum, where the d replacing the l slightly masks the name of the millstone. Moreover, the etymological origin of the word must have been gradually lost, all the more so as the process of starch manufacture evolved, the wheat being crushed, ground or even milled before maceration. Eventually, wheat starch is produced today from flour, which is in complete contradiction with the etymology of the Greek name amulon. Such a situation is encountered with many other words with meanings that deviated from its original meaning: for 168

Wheat in the oven and in the mill

example, an album initially was a white book (albus, “white” in Latin), but then it remains an album, even if it is not white. It is in any case from the Late Latin amidum that the French name of starch, amidon, comes, as in the other Romance languages: Italian amido, Spanish almidón, where we see the influence of the Arabic article al...

z A product that thickens and stiffens The names of starch in English and in German (Stärke) obviously do not have the Greek origin found in the Romance languages. They are of a more recent Germanic origin and they are linked to the same Germanic root as the adjective stark, meaning “stiff, rigid” in English, and “strong, solid, resistant” in German. This time, the names are motivated, not by the process of production, but by the properties of use of starch: a thickener or, apart from food uses, a stiffener for textiles that are starched, such as collars.

z A starched bird? Surprisingly, the names of the stork in English and in German (Storch) are also linked to the same origin as the adjective stark, because this bird, particularly graceful in flight, is characterized on the ground by a

➜ Stork’s

feet appear starched, given the stiffness of their gait. 169

Chapter 7 – In the intimacy of plants

kind of stiffness in its gait, as if its legs were starched. Like starch, the stork has very different names in Germanic and Romance languages: French cigogne, Italian cigogna, Spanish cigüeña, from the Latin ciconia (pronounced kikonia), probably an onomatopoeia, to render its characteristic beak clattering.

z A common language for chemistry Although the name of starch varies greatly from one language to another, the name of amylase, the enzyme for digesting starch, is very stable: amylase in English and in French, Amylase in German, amilasi in Italian, amilasa in Spanish. Even in non-European languages, the name of this enzyme is phonetically similar (in Japanese, アミラーゼ is pronounced roughly as amylase). The word amylase is based on the Latin amylum and the suffix -ase used to form enzyme names. WHERE DOES THE WORD ENZYME COME FROM? The German word Enzym was coined in 1877 by the German physiologist Kühne, from the Greek en-, “in”, and zumê, “leaven, brewer’s yeast”, to designate a protein capable of provoking or accelerating, i.e., catalyzing, a biochemical reaction. The word is adopted in many languages, enzyme in English and French, enzima in Spanish... The enzymes, par excellence, are therefore those that ensure the leavening of a dough or the fermentation of a drink (in Latin, fermentum, “leaven, ferment”). Since ancient times, we have known the effects of their presence… and absence as in the case of unleavened bread, pain azyme in French, as for Christian host.

z Esperantist epilogue Fortunately indeed, to designate the names of the chemical compounds related to starch, the international terminology goes back to the classical Latin amylum using the element amyl(o)-, or amil(o)-, or the phonetic equivalent with other alphabets. This clearly shows the role that Latin and Greek still play in scientific and technical communication between countries with different languages. In Esperanto, starch is called amelo.

170

Wheat in the oven and in the mill

➜ Starch,

a mixture of polymers (a typical sequence of its structure is shown here), is obtained from wheat. Starch: Fotolia.com - airborne77.

➜ Millstone

and bread oven. 171

Chapter 7 – In the intimacy of plants

2

The best and the worst of a seed ricinolein, ricin and crotonic acid Ricinolein is derived from ricinoleic acid; it is the essential component of castor oil, extracted from the castor bean and used since ancient times for its medicinal virtues or as a lubricant. This subject gives us a new opportunity to go back to Latin and Greek, while evoking some rather unexpected metaphors.

➜ Ricinoleic

acid is extracted from beans of the castor plant (Ricinus communis).

The name of the plant in French, ricin, derives quite simply from its name in Latin, ricinus, just as in Spanish (ricino) or German (Rizinus), but not in English, which is where the first surprise occurs.

z From the castor plant... to the beaver In English, this plant is called castor plant, its seed castor bean, and its oil castor oil. Is it really the rodent named castor in French (from Latin castor, Greek kastôr), whereas its common name in English is beaver (from Germanic)? In fact yes, probably as a result of confusion, because the beaver has an abdominal gland that secretes an oily substance, known since ancient times by its Latin name castoreum, from the Greek kastorion. The use of oil made with this plant beans and castoreum for the same medicinal purposes, or as a lubricant, is undoubtedly the origin of the English name castor oil, a transposition of the French “huile de castor”.

172

The best and the worst of a seed

➜ The

plant named ricin in French is called castor plant in English.

But beware of false friends and misnomers! In English, castor plant means ricin in French, while the more recent English word ricin means ricine in French... a highly toxic protein, also contained in small quantities in the castor seed. A deadly false friend in this case. English

French

Spanish

German

castor plant

ricin

ricino

Rizinus

ricin

ricine

ricina

Rizin

z From the castor plant... to the tick The second surprise, perhaps somewhat less sympathetic, comes from the Latin name ricinus, which in the first sense meant... the tick, that nasty mite that the Ancients already feared, especially for their sheep or dogs. So, why this metaphor?

➜ The

castor bean and the brown dog tick, a strange family resemblance!

Tick: Wikipedia, cc-by-sa-2.5, André Karwath aka.

173

Chapter 7 – In the intimacy of plants

Because the castor bean reminds us a little bit of a tick, by its shape, on the one hand, and even by its marbled colour similar to that of some species of dog ticks on the other hand. A male tick is smaller than the seed, but a female tick swollen with blood is almost as big. The great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus perpetuated in any case the double meaning of the Latin ricinus by classifying the castor plant in the genus Ricinus while giving the name of species ricinus to the sheep tick (today, Ixodes ricinus).

z From the castor plant... to the croton The Latin passage from tick to castor bean was actually inspired by the Greek because Theophrastus (3rd century BC) already gave the castor bean the name krotôn, which in the first sense meant... the tick. The evolution of meaning of the Latin ricinus is therefore a copy (a calque in linguistics) of the Greek krotôn. But the story does not stop there because one discovered, in the same family as the castor plant euphorbiaceae, plants with oleaginous seeds resembling castor beans, hence the names ricinus, or ricinoides, or croton that they were given. And Linnaeus clarified these designations in his Species plantorum (1753), where the castor plant is named Ricinus communis (so far the only one in its genus) and the genus Croton appears (for already thirteen species, while today about… 1 200 are known). The most common croton is Croton tiglium, a medicinal plant native to subtropical Asia. Croton oil is made from it, and is mainly a derivative of crotonic

➜ Crotonic

acid is extracted from a species of croton (Croton tiglium).

Franz Eugen Kôhler, Kôhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen Creative common attribution. 174

The best and the worst of a seed

acid, isolated in 1831 by Pelletier and Caventou, the discoverers of quinine (see next section). FOR CHEMISTS: FROM CROTON TO CROTONISATION In organic chemistry, the process of obtaining an unsaturated aldehyde by dehydration of an aldol is called crotonisation, in reference to unsaturated crotonaldehyde, which is obtained from two molecules of acetaldehyde according to a reaction scheme, the last stage of which is precisely the dehydration of an aldol.

➜ Synthesis

O R

O R'

H 2 saturated aldehydes ➜ The

of crotonaldehyde.

aldolisation H

OH H

R

O

crotonisation H

-H2O

H R

R' aldol

O H

R' unsaturated aldehyde

crotonisation reaction – the general case.

z A staged epilogue In short, croton oil is derived from a plant, the croton, the seed of which, like that of the castor plant, resembles a tick, which the Greeks called krotôn. An etymology that brings together chemical, botanical and zoological observations made since antiquity.

175

Chapter 7 – In the intimacy of plants

3

A comforting tree cinchonine, quinine, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

The saga of the quinine is a remarkable chapter in the history of the Spaniards in South America, and of their cultural and linguistic exchanges with the Amerindians.

z A miraculous bark

➜ Bark

of cinchona, source of powder

of the Countess of Chinchón or of The Spaniards who settled in the region the Jesuits? of Peru from the 1540’s probably noticed that the Incas living in the Andes mountains drank infusions of bark from a certain tree, the cinchona, to fight feverish states1. They deduced that a febrifuge remedy could be derived from this bark, a little like from that of the willow, already well known in Europe, and which would later give the idea of aspirin. The Spaniards even thought they could find from cinchona a remedy against malaria, the scourge of the Old World that the Europeans inevitably were bringing to America.

It was in fact the Jesuits, especially those based in Lima, who carried out the botanical observations, bark harvests and trials of treatments for the sick. The success in America continued in Europe from the 1630’s until cinchona bark became the source of an important antimalarial drug, which was sometimes called the Jesuits’ powder. The reality happened to be embellished, such as by a Genoese doctor who published a story in 1663 according to which the 4th Countess of Chinchón, the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, had been cured of the disease by the precious bark “to everyone’s amazement”. The story was later proven to be fanciful, as the Countess died on her return to Madrid, but the memory of 1. Rocco, Fiammetta, L’écorce miraculeuse, Le remède qui changea le monde, Noir sur Blanc, Paris, 2006 (translated from The miraculous Fever-Tree, Harper-Collins, 2003), 322 p., p. 72. 176

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it was so hard-lived up that the cinchona powder was nicknamed the Countess’ powder. As a matter of fact, the great botanist Linnaeus even deduced from Chinchón (forgetting the first /h/) the genus name Cinchona for the different species of these trees, hence their name in English, cinchona.

➜ The

countess of Chinchón receiving from the Viceroy the infusion of cinchona in front of the Inca who brought back the bark. The twig of the yellow cinchona (Cinchona calisaya), which grows in the Andes between 1 200 and 3 000 m above sea level. Table Wellcome Library, London; Yellow Cinchona: Franz Eugen Kôhler, Kôhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen - Creative Commons Attribution.

z Where does the French name quinquina come from? We read in several dictionaries that quinquina, in French, is a name borrowed through Spanish from Quechua, the Amerindian language of Peru, as is the case for other names of plants (hevea, quinoa...) or animals (condor, puma, llama, guanaco, vicuna...). However, the origin of quinquina is less simple, and still remains uncertain. First of all, in Spanish, the name of the cinchona is quina, and quina was already used in the Middle Ages to designate an Asian plant, or the remedy that was derived from it. It is thus possible that the Spaniards reused this name quina, which would have become in 177

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the Quechua language quina-quina (hence quinquina), by a superlative type of doubling, for the precious bark. Finally, it has also been noticed that the genus name Cinchona is pronounced in Latin kin’kona, which is roughly understood as kinkina… To sum up, it is perhaps less precise, but more accurate, to remember that quinquina is of Hispano-Quechua origin, resulting from the collaboration between the Spaniards and the Amerindians. In fact, the name quina was used for a long time in French, next to quinquina. Thus Jean de La Fontaine, occasional Forestry commissioner, dedicated The poem of the Quinquina (1682) to the Duchess of Bouillon (sic, and it is true!), and enthusiastically recommended to her: “The Quina offers itself to you, use its treasures”.

z The chemistry of cinchona At the beginning of the 19th century, French chemists Pelletier and Caventou researched the active ingredients in the bark of several species of cinchonas. After isolating a first active substance, which they named cinchonine (a Cinchona derivative), they discovered a second, more active one, about which they wrote in 1820: “We thought we should name it quinine, to distinguish it from cinchonine by a name which also indicates its origin”, quinine being derived from quina. This discovery earned them the title of “benefactors of humanity”. Quinine has indeed helped to reduce malaria worldwide and is still used in some cases, although other molecules are more widely used today. For example, a chlorinated molecule resembling quinine was discovered during World War  II and named in 1946 chloroquine (short for chloroquinine). It is used, as well as hydroxychloroquine, against malaria and other diseases. 178

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z A tonic epilogue A small dose of quinine is still found in so-called “tonic” drinks, such as Canada Dry Tonic Water, gin and tonic cocktail, or other stimulating drinks such as the “old”-timer Quintonine®, a portmanteau name between quinine and tonic. ➜ Affiche: TooVintage.com

➜ This statue (from 1951), on the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, not far from the Faculty of Pharmacy,

represents a woman healed from fever, thanks to quinine, discovered by Pelletier and Caventou. “In the year 1820 the pharmacists PELLETIER and CAVENTOU discovered quinine. Thanks to their precious discovery, thanks to their unselfishness, they deserved the title of benefactors of humanity”. Photo: M.-T. Dinh-Audouin.

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4

And here comes Jupiter again, with nuts! juglone and lawsone

Active ingredients of plants often have self-evident, transparent names: jasmone is extracted from jasmine, geraniol from geranium, thymol from thyme, eucalyptol from eucalyptus or pinene from pine... But the plant that hides behind the name juglone does not stand out. An old name given to this substance, nucine, is more eloquent: it reminds us of the nut, in Latin nux, nucis. Juglone is in fact a molecule present in the roots, bark, leaves and fruits of the walnut tree. Its name (idem in French, juglona in Spanish, Juglon in German) comes from the Latin juglans, juglandis, “walnut” (hence juglandine, another old name for juglone), the origin of which is a little unexpected.

z Walnut, thou art the divine fruit of a royal tree! The Latin nux, nucis, designated the walnut, or by analogy other nuts, and to avoid confusion, adjectives were used: abellana nux for the hazelnut, pinea nux for the pine nut, or juglans nux for the common walnut, which was the most prized of these fruits. Now juglans comes from the Latin expression Jovis glans, from glans, glandis, “acorn”, here “dry fruit”, and Jovis,

➜ Shells

contain nuts, juglans nux, a divinely good fruit!

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And here comes Jupiter again, with nuts!

“of Jupiter”, for this fruit was considered worthy of the supreme god, a divinely good fruit. In Latin, the nut was therefore called nux, or juglans nux, or finally, juglans which Pliny the Elder also referred to the walnut tree itself. Linnaeus (1753) created the genus Juglans and named the species of the common European walnut tree Juglans regia, i.e., “royal walnut tree”. The name juglone is thus composed of jugl(ans), “walnut, walnut tree”, and the suffix -one because this molecule belongs to the family of quinones, the name of which is derived from quina, Spanish name of cinchona (just like that of quinine seen in the previous section).

z Other terms in chemistry from the name of the nut? Yes, the Latin nucleus, derived from nux, first referred to the nut kernel, and then by extension to the complete stone (kernel and shell) of a fruit. By analogy, we have the nucleus of an atom or of a cell in biology. From nucleus come the adjective nuclear and words relating either to the atomic nucleus (nuclide, nucleon...), or to the cell nucleus (nucleic acid, including RNA and DNA, where the N is that of a nut). And in Greek? The name of the nut in Greek was karuon, which by extension also meant any central core of something, hence the element karyo-, “nucleus”, which appears in the vocabulary of biology relating to the cell nucleus: prokaryotes, eukaryotes and their karyotype (where we find again DNA!). But let’s come back to the walnut tree.

z A tree with multiple uses Walnut trees have always been appreciated for their wood, walnuts, walnut oil, and even their medicinal leaves. In addition, the maceration of the walnut husks leads to the walnut liqueur, to which the juglone gives a beautiful brown colouring. Pliny reported that this product was used to dye wool, as well as hair, the latter use being similar to that of henna, taken from the leaves of the bush of the same name, and the active ingredient of which, lawsone, is very similar to juglone.

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➜ The

juglone of walnut (Juglans regia) and the lawsone of henna (Lawsonia inermis, after Isaac Lawson, an 18th century Scottish naturalist).

Walnut stain was also used to colour the wood, and painters used it to create a brown called walnut stain for inks and colours. But Pliny also mentions, exaggerating a little, that the shadow “of the walnut tree is painful and harmful, even to man, to whom it gives a headache, and to all the plants around”. It is in fact known that vegetation hardly grows under a walnut tree, due to a certain toxicity of the juglone. In fact, the real walnut liqueur is hardly used nowadays. It is replaced by a product of a very similar colour, developed from lignite, a coal low in carbon but rich in woody residues (lignite comes from the Latin lignum, “wood”, like lignin: see next section). The lignite deposits near Kassel (Hesse) in central Germany gave their name to the Kassel extract, which is used to prepare a product called walnut liqueur, only because it has the colour of walnut stain2.

2. Perego, François, Dictionnaire des matériaux du peintre, Belin, Paris, 2005, 895 p., p. 140. 182

And here comes Jupiter again, with nuts!

z Paradoxical epilogue Juglone therefore has a chemical, and discreetly etymological, relation with the walnut, the name of which is much more obvious in walnut stain, even when this colour is derived from lignite. A contradiction that we also have with the French nougat, from the Old Provençal nougo, “walnut”, because it was once a mixture of honey and walnuts, and is still called in this way, although walnuts have been replaced by almonds for about four hundred years in France.

➜ Painting

with walnut stain by Pierre Soulages. “Walnut stain is an ordinary material used to dye wood. The brushstrokes as a whole are organized here in an immediately perceptible, accessible form. Walnut stain has a warm, dark tone, a sort of inherent strength that appeals to me. It provides a natural means to achieve transparent and opaque effects with a fine resonance” - Pierre Soulages. Brou de noix sur papier 65.5 × 50.2 cm, 1949 (collection musée Soulages Rodez/Photo: Christian Bousquet).

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5

Lumber and firewood lignin, lignite, cellulose, xylene and xylose

We will see that a word can change its meaning while travelling, and also that the names for wood are very varied in Europe...

➜ The

names of woods can take various paths.

The name lignin appears (in French, lignine) in the Théorie élémentaire de la botanique3 of the Genevan botanist Augustin de Candolle, who thus created a scientific term for what was then called the ligneous body, or the woody part of a plant, or simply the wood in the case of a tree. This new name was formed, like the adjective ligneous, from the Latin lignum,

3. de Candolle, Augustin Pyrame, Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, or Exposition des principes de la classification naturelle et de l’art de décrire et d’étudier les végétaux, Déterville, Paris, 1813, 527 p., p. 417. 184

Lumber and firewood

“wood”, but with the suffix -in of a substance. Basically, lignin was then practically synonymous with wood, far from its current meaning. In any case, there is no possible confusion between the etymological doublets, lignin and lignite, a name already attested in 1765, with the suffix -ite of a mineral, and designating a poor-grade coal resulting from incomplete decomposition of woody matter.

z Wood, a composite material before its time It was the French researcher Payen who in 1838-1839 highlighted the two main components of wood: on the one hand, what he called cellulose, and on the other, a material coating this cellulose, which he described as “a special material, which would be the ligneous part itself”. It is noticeable that he does not use the name lignin, neither in its initial meaning of 1813, nor in its current meaning. Much later, in 1856, the German researcher Schulze took his inspiration from the still little-used French word lignine to create the name Lignin in German, this time referring not to wood but to one of its components: this material coating cellulose, since then called lignin, or lignine in French. The name lignin thus took on its current meaning after a round trip through Germany. On the other hand, it has become widespread: lignina in Italian and Spanish... or for example リグニン in Japanese, which is pronounced roughly like lignin.

➜ Lignin

is a three-dimensional polymer similar to a phenolic resin. A plant tissue is woody when the proportion of lignin exceeds 15 to 20%. 185

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z Lignin, line... and linen Is there an etymological relation between lignin, ligneous and line (in French ligne)? Because of the lines that seem to be drawn on the edge of the cut wood, as if ligneous meant “full of lines”? In fact “no”, line comes from the Latin linea, which is simply the feminine of the adjective lineus, “in flax”, derived from linum, “flax”, or “flax fabric, linen”: in other words, etymologically, a line is a fibre of flax. Perhaps more unexpectedly, in the chemical industry, the term liner is used to refer to the inner coating of a pipe or reactor, but in the first sense, liner refers to the lining, originally made of flax linen, of a garment. However, flax does not look like wood, and in fact, lignum, “wood”, does not come from linum, “flax”, at all.

z Two names for wood in Latin The true origin of lignum can be traced back to the Latin verb legere, which first meant “to collect, to gather”, because of the dead wood that is collected to fuel the fireplace. Etymologically, therefore, lignum refers to firewood, as opposed to another Latin name, materia, which refers to matter or material in general, and wood as a building material in particular. Both names are found in Spanish: leña, “firewood”, and madera, “timber”. On the other hand, in Italian, legno is used to designate, without distinction, wood in general.

z Other names for wood In other languages, the name of wood is not related to the fact that it is gathered, nor to its qualities as a material, but simply to the fact that it comes from trees and that trees form forests, large or small. Thus in French, bois, from the Frankish *bosk, “bush”, means both wood as a group of trees and wood as a material. The same is true in English with wood, as well as in Old German with Holz, the meaning of which was finally restricted in modern German to “wood” as a material, whereas Wald has become the accepted term for “forests and woods”.

186

Lumber and firewood CH3

CH3

CH3

CH3 CH3 CH3 1,2-dimethylbenzene (ortho-xylene)

1,3-dimethylbenzene (meta-xylene)

1,4-dimethylbenzene (para-xylene)

In Greek, hulê, the origin of the suffix -yle in chemistry (cf. Ch. 1), also takes on all meanings from forest to wood material. The other Greek name for wood, xulon, refers rather to the material and objects made of wood, hence the element xyl(o)-, “wood”, visible in the names of xylene, found in wood distillation products, and xylose, or “wood sugar”, isolated from wood components.

z Multilingual epilogue There is a spectacular diversity of names for wood, if only within the languages of Europe (hulê, xulon, legno, madera, bois, wood, Holz), while the name lignin, with its slight variations from one language to another, is understood worldwide, as is Esperanto, where wood is called ligno.

➜ Wooden

church among Norwegian woods. 187

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6

The tree that invented polystyrene styrene and benzene

Polystyrene, expanded or not, is useful in many areas of daily life, and in fact, the name styrene is well known: even if you are not a chemist, you can imagine that styrene is used to make polystyrene. However, the name has a negative connotation because it is immediately associated with the large petrochemical industry, the mass production of synthetic products. However, the etymology of the name styrene, which is generally not well-known, gives it a connotation that some could consider more positive, since it refers to the plant origin of the product.

z A “movie star” product Surprisingly, styrene entered the history of cinema with Le Chant du styrène (The Song of styrene), a short film by Alain Resnais released in 1958, with the technical assistance of the late Pechiney company. The commentary of this short film (visible today on YouTube®) is a poem written by the surrealist Raymond Queneau, better known for having published Zazie in the Metro the following year. Le Chant du styrène is therefore also an improbable poetic song in alexandrines, where we find this evocation of styrene and its petrochemical origin: “Styrene is produced in abundant quantities starting from the ethylbenzene, superheated.” Queneau, who liked to play with etymology, added shortly afterwards: “The styrene was once extracted from benzoin, which comes from the styrax, the shrub Indonesian”. These verses suggest that the word styrene comes from styrax, which is a certainty indeed, but needs some explanation. The same Greek 188

The tree that invented polystyrene

name sturax, then styrax in Latin, from which styrax, sometimes storax, in Modern languages, applies to two neighbouring aromatic resins: one of which is extracted in liquid form from bark of a large tree, while the other is a solid gum secreted by a shrub4. This double meaning of styrax could only lead to confusion.

z From benzoin to benzene Let us first consider solid styrax, which was burned as incense in antiquity, and which was harvested mainly from a Syrian shrub (Styrax officinalis since Linnaeus), itself called styrax. Other shrubs of the same genus, called styrax in the broadest sense, also produce a solid gum, such as benzoin, harvested from a specific Indonesian styrax also called benzoin (Styrax benzoin), the name of which goes back, through Catalan, to the Arabic lubān-gāwi, “incense of Java”. This “benzoin” is therefore indeed “Indonesian”, but rather than styrene, its name visibly refers to benzene: this resin contains an acid, isolated since the end of the 16th century and baptized in 1787 benzoic, hence the element benzo-, and benzene, where it is amusing to see that the/z/ is an avatar of the /J/ of Java.

➜ Benzene

(left) and styrene (right).

➜ Benzoin (Styrax benzoin) is an “Indonesian shrub”, and

it is from its solid resin that benzoic acid, hence the word benzene, was derived.

4. Amiguès, Suzanne, Le styrax et ses usages antiques, Journal des savants, n° 2, 2007, pp. 261-318. 189

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z From liquid styrax to styrene But what about styrene? In fact, this molecule was not found in a solid styrax, but in a liquid styrax. This resin, long ago used in pharmaceuticals, is derived from the bark of large trees, also called styrax in antiquity and Middle Ages, but today called liquidambar. One of the liquidambars has been present in southern Europe since antiquity (Liquidambar orientalis), and another was discovered in America and named by Linnaeus ➜ Liquidambar orientalis produces styrax liquid. Liquidambar styraciflua, because from its bark flows a liquid styrax of the colour of yellow amber, as a kind of “liquid amber” (from which the name liquidambar comes, via Spanish).

➜ Leaves

and fruits of the liquidambar, during autumn.

And it is from this liquid styrax that styrene was extracted by distillation. In 1831, in the Journal de Pharmacie, the French chemist Bonastre described a new colourless liquid, which he called “volatile oil”, and which in fact contained a majority of styrene. Later on, the Berlin pharmacist Simon resumed this work, taking the distillation process a step further to obtain an oily liquid with a defined chemical composition.

In his 1839 publication, Simon shows that the chemical structure of this product is CnHn in form and he names it in German Styrol, from Styr(ax) + öl, “oil”. Other researchers will then show that n = 8 and establish the developed structure of the molecule. This name Styrol remained in use in German, but in English and French, possible confusion with an 190

The tree that invented polystyrene

alcohol, since its name ends with -ol, led to its modification into styrolene and finally styrene, analog of styrène in French, estireno in Spanish (where styrax, the resin, is called estorace).

z A poetic epilogue To conclude with an “à la manière de”, the etymology of styrene can be described with two alexandrines: Originally, the styrene came from styrax, a resin flowing from the liquidambar trunk. This etymology will prove reassuring to some, since it confirms that styrene is indeed an “invention” of nature before becoming a human production.

➜ From

the bark of Liquidambar styraciflua, flows liquid styrax in which styrene can be found. 191

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7

The aromas of plants nepetalactone, turpentine, pinene, isoprene and other terpenes... and terephthalic acid

On the subject of catmint, which attracts felines, one can read: “Nepetalactone triggers sex pheromones in its brain, that’s the effect of this terpene.” Could it be in a chemistry treatise? Not at all: it is in Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s novel, L’élixir d’amour (2014), which has been adapted for the theatre, where the use of the word terpene may surprise a spectator who is not a chemistry buff. For the chemist at least, a terpene is defined as a hydrocarbon of natural origin, formally derived from isoprene units: C5H8 or CH2=C(CH3)CH=CH2; see figure on next page. Of natural origin or not, the molecules having such a carbon skeleton with possible variations (rearrangements of the skeleton, presence of oxygen...) are called isoprenoids (terpenoids in the special case of oxygenated derivatives). But in common use, isoprenoid, terpenoid and terpene are often confused. In fact, nepetalactone is strictly speaking a terpenoid, but we won’t criticize the author for calling it a terpene. This terpene name could indicate a ternary structure, a bit like a terpolymer is made up of 3 different monomers, but this idea does not hold because the number of isoprenes in terpene molecules is absolutely not fixed at 3. On the contrary, a terpene is constructed

➜ In

nepetalactone, we recognize the Latin name of catmint, nepeta. 192

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with 2  isoprenes if it is a monoterpene (C10H16), with 3  isoprenes if it is a sesquiterpene (C15H24), where sesqui = one and a half, with 4 isoprenes if it is a diterpene (C20H32), etc., up to polyterpenes, such as the polyisoprene of natural rubber. It was from the latter polymer that isoprene was isolated in 1860 (and named isoprene, a name given without explanation, and which has remained enigmatic ever since, which is indeed an unusual occurrence). Unrelated, therefore, to the number 3, the etymology of the name of terpenes actually lies in their natural origin: terpenes are extracted mainly from various plant resins, turpentines.

z A name of German origin... The name terpene is in fact a borrowing of the German Terpen, derived from the German Terpentin, “turpentine”, and proposed in 1863 by the German chemist Kekulé to designate the C10H16 monoterpenes derived from turpentine5. The names Terpen, terpene in English, terpène in French, terpeno in Spanish... then took on the current meaning, which is broader, beyond the strict monoterpenes. The name turpentine immediately brings to mind conifers, as this is how the resin of pines, spruces and other conifers was historically named. Turpentine separates into a solid residue, rosin, and an essential oil, turpentine oil, the composition of which varies according to the vegetable species, but always contains pinene, which is particularly important in pine resin (hence pinene, from the Latin pinus, “pine”).

➜ Turpentine

essence from conifers contains a monoterpene called α-pinene. Wikimedia - Kekka - Creative common attribution CC-BY-2.0.

5. Kekulé, August, Lehrbuch der Organischen Chemie, Ferdinand Enke, Erlangen, 1863, vol. 2, p. 464. 193

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The name turpentine is therefore expected to be related to the name pine, or at least to a conifer, but this is, nonetheless, a red herring.

z ... dating back to the Greek Turpentine has been known since ancient times. It was certainly extracted from conifers, but also from another very important source, a Mediterranean shrub that the Greek philosopher and naturalist Theophrastus called terminthos, which in Late Greek became terebinthos, perhaps under the influence of the Greek erebinthos, “chickpea”. This shrub is a pistachio tree, named in Latin terebinthus, then in English terebinth tree: it produces small pistachios, which may have been confused with chickpeas, and especially an abundant resin, named terebinthinê in Greek, then, through the Latin, turpentine, Terpentin in German, térébenthine in French, surprisingly becoming trementina in Spanish..., to designate the resin of this shrub and more generally of any resinous plant, including conifers.

z Derivatives of turpentine... and of its name Turpentine has always been distilled to obtain various more or less volatile derivatives, named for example térébenthène, acide térébique... in French publications around 1840. Then in 1846, the French chemist Cailliot, by oxidizing turpentine oil with nitric acid, obtained three new organic acids which he called téréphthalique, térébenzique and téréchrysique, which was equivalent to considering téré- as a prefix. Kekulé, while creating the collective name Terpen, designated particular terpenes under names such as Tereben, Terebenten..., following French publications. However, while the name Terpen was adopted in all languages, most of the names derived from téré(bent)- have been abandoned: they have been replaced by more specific names, such as pinene, limonene, etc. One notable exception is the name terephthalic acid, an acid that has taken on considerable industrial importance for the synthesis of the polyesters most used in textile fibres and thermoplastics.

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z Historical epilogue It is therefore common in chemistry to use two names that refer to turpentine: terephthalic acid and terpene. The word terephthalic recalls French studies, but terpene name has the merit of recalling the work of Kekulé published in German.

➜ From

pistachio terebinth to the PET bottle, via terephthalic acid.

Wikimedia - graffer.net - Creative common attribution cc-by-sa-2.5.

Finally, terephthalic acid is used to make polyethylene terephthalate, the polyester more commonly known by the acronym PET, where the T is therefore the initial of the name terminthos, which Theophrastus gave to a resinous pistachio tree in the 3rd century BC. A rather abrupt, radical shortcut through 2 300 years of history.

➜ Conifers

are rich in terpenes. 195

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➜ Broceliande

is a mythical Brittany forest, in the legends of King Arthur. It is home to Merlin the Enchanter, the fairies Morgan and Viviane, and some of the most famous knights of the Round Table. Photo: CRTB Berthier Emmanuel.

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Animal stories

8

Where zoology meets chemistry 1 Foxes are so foxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

200

2 Ruminant butters and acids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

204

3 The name that fits the bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

208

4 A discovery in the liver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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ANIMAL STORIES The fox, star of bestiaries throughout the ages Literature is punctuated with remarkable bestiaries, the oldest of which probably dates back to the 6th century BC, viz., Aesop’s Fables. There are about 360 of these fables, of which about 260 (just over 70%) placed animals centre stage. The undisputed star of these animal stories is the fox, which plays a role in no less than 42 fables. In this regard, the only known ancient depiction of Aesop, a character who is both historical and legendary, shows him conversing with a fox.

➜ Aesop

and the fox. Painting showing Aesop with a fox, on a Greek terracotta (5th century BC) found in the Etruscan city of Vulci (Italy). Vatican Museums. Free Art-license.

And afterwards, the fox, both cunning and evil, has remained the hero of many stories, including the emblematic Reynard the Fox, in French Roman de Renart, from which the very name of this animal in French, renard, comes. And it is probably no coincidence that the fox appears in many different ways in the following section.

➜ Illumination

of 13th century: Reynard the fox wounding Ysengrin the wolf.

Other animals in chemistry The legendary wolf was found in connection with tungsten, the symbol of which, W, recalls its name in German, Wolf (cf. Ch. 3), as well as the beaver in connection with castor oil (cf. Ch. 7). In next chapter we shall find the ant in relation to formic acid.

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The amazing history of element names

Generally speaking, there are many more plants than animals in chemical names. For example, we saw in the last section that the plant-based name for valeric acid was preferred to dolphin or porpoise, previously proposed by the French chemist Chevreul, who was more fortunate in his choice of many other product names, especially for fatty acids of animal origin, as will be seen in the second section of this chapter. Thus, in addition to dolphin oil, Chevreul also studied the oil contained in spermaceti, extracted from the heads of sperm whales and other cetaceans. In 1816, he named this oil in French cetine, in English cetin, from the Latin cetus, ceti, “whale, sperm whale, cetacean”. From cetin was obtained the C16 alkane, cetane. This is how the name of the whale underlies the cetane number which, for diesel fuel, is equivalent to the octane number for gasoline. A remark: cetane has nothing to do with acetone, itself derived from acetic (acid), in Latin acetum, “vinegar”, totally unrelated to a whale. Other names related to the animal kingdom In fatty substance chemistry, milk is an essential raw material. Its names in Greek, gala, galactos, and in Latin lac, lactis, are related. From Greek comes the name of galactose, an isomer of glucose, and from Latin the name of lactose, a molecule composed of a glucose unit and a galactose unit, which an enzyme, lactase, can split. It is thanks to this enzyme that we can digest milk, an enzyme that individuals do not all possess in the same quantity in the body. Lactose CH2OH OH O O OH

CH2OH O OH OH

CH2OH Glucose

Lactase

CH2OH OH OH O OH OH

OH

OH

O OH OH

Galactose

OH

OH

Animal metabolism involves a large number of proteins and sugars, two examples of which are given, respectively keratin in the 3th and heparin in the 4th sections of this chapter. And so it is with the fox that our animal stories begin...

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1

Foxes are so foxy fuchsine

The history of fuchsine begins with the work of the Lyon chemist Verguin who, in 1858, filed a first patent for the manufacture of a violet colouring dye, by oxidation of a mixture of aniline and other aminated compounds (containing the nitrogen atom), using ➜ Fuchsia flowers and the fuchsine molecule. License cc-by-sa-2.5, André Karwath aka. potassium dichromate. But Verguin quickly sold his patent to the Renard brothers, dyers in Lyon, who modified the process with tin chloride as the oxidizer and filed another patent claim on April 8, 1859 for the “Preparation and use of Fuchsine, a new red colouring matter”. The name fuchsine appears for the first time in this patent, where the authors specify: “We designate this material under the name of Fuchsine because of its resemblance to the colour of the Fuchsia flower”. One could not be clearer. Rarely is there even such explicit proof of the origin of a name, and despite this, a number of works present the etymology of fuchsine as uncertain.

z A double origin? One reads in the latest edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy that fuchsine probably comes from fuchsia, and in the Trésor de la Langue Française that fuchsine comes either from fuchsia or from Fuchs, the name of the fox, and then of the Renard brothers, in German. However, on reading the 1859 patent, where all the words were surely carefully weighed, it appears that fuchsine derives certainly from fuchsia. But it 200

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is no less certain that the Renard brothers could not have envisaged, and then decided, to adopt this commercial name of fuchsine without thinking at one time or another of the connection that one would not fail to make with their own name in German, especially since German chemistry already occupied a prominent place at that time. In conclusion, the name fuchsine derives explicitly from fuchsia, but it is also implicitly reminiscent of the name of the patent holders. Moreover, one can wonder if the Renard brothers did not seek, by the choice of fuchsine, even motivated by colour, a way to mark at the same time their ownership of an innovation resulting from Verguin’s work.

z Mr Fox, I presume? The name of this animal is underlying in fuchsia, a name created in 1703 in honour of the illustrious German botanist Leonhart Fuchs, whose name recalls some distant ancestor, compared for one reason or another to a fox. The family names Fox and Vos (“fox” in Dutch), or Devos, meaning “the fox”, are similarly explained. On the other hand, and this seems paradoxical, the name of Renard brothers most probably does not come from the name of the animal. Indeed, the equivalent of Fuchs, Fox or Devos in French names is rather Goupil, or Legoupil, where we recognize goupil (from the Latin vulpiculus, diminutive of vulpes, “fox”), the name of the fox in Old French, which prevailed in the period when the first family names were formed. It was only after the immense popular success of the Roman de Renart in the 12th century that the name renart, then renard, gradually supplanted goupil in the French language. As a result, Renard, which is one of the hundred most frequent family names in France, is most often the name ➜ Reynard, the fox in the which existed before the 12th  century, and Roman de Renart. License cc-by-sa-2.5, Frithjof more rarely the name of the animal, only Spangenberg. for more recent names. In other words, it is the name that the Renard brothers bore that would have been given to the animal rather than the other way around! 201

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z A promising name… in French? The name of the fox in English, as well as in other Germanic languages, as Fuchs in German, vos in Dutch, can be connected with the IndoEuropean root *puk-, meaning “tail”. The reason of that is the magnificent tail of the fox, which is the most visible and spectacular part of its fur. As we can see, the nature of the etymology of fox is very concrete. On the contrary, the etymology of the French renard, “fox”, is much more in the abstract.

➜ Volpone,

created in 1606 by Ben Jonson, and Zorro, created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley, with the fox present in their names, are the latter-day successors of the hero of Renart’s Novel.

Renard is part of all those French names of Germanic (often Frankish) origin which were frequent baptismal names from the 9th  century onwards. These names are generally formed on two Germanic roots: thus Renard, in Medieval Latin Raginardus, is formed on the roots ragin, “advice, opinion”, and hard, “hard, strong” (cf. the names in -ard, evoking strength of a bear for Bernard -Bär, Baren, “bear” in German, or of a boar for Evrard -Eber, “boar” in German, or of a lion for Leonard...). Renard thus evokes “strong in advice”, i.e., “clever, cunning”, and it 202

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is not surprising that the authors of Roman de Renart have so named their hero. It is by the opposite approach that, much later, Volpone was given the name of the old fox in Italian and Zorro the name of the fox in Spanish. Thus, from the fox of the medieval times to the Spanish dispenser of justice Zorro (1919) created by the American writer Johnston McCulley, via the Italian cynic Volpone in Ben Jonson’s comedy (1606), the fox is an animal that has always been associated with cunning.

z Ingenious epilogue In conclusion, the name of fuchsine is certainly linked to the colour of fuchsia, and it probably also recalls the name of its inventors, Renard, which, if we take the etymology to its logical conclusion, also evokes all the cunning and ingenuity that were needed to perfect and develop this product, still used today, especially as a reagent in biology.

➜ Reynard

the fox hides a very clever etymology

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2

Ruminant butters and acids butyric acid, butane, caproic, caprylic, capric acids and caprolactam...

The name butane is known to everyone, even to those who don’t camp! But do we know its origin? One of the merits of etymology is that it sometimes reveals unexpected links between words used in very different contexts: in this case, one might not expect to find here the name of a familiar animal hidden under the term butane. The story starts at the beginning of the 19th century with the work on fatty substances by the chemist Chevreul1, born in 1786 and died at the most respectable age of 102.

➜ Michel-Eugène

Chevreul (1786-1889), French chemist and member of the Académie des Sciences. Medal for the centenary of his birth. Wikipedia, cc-by-sa-3.0, Selvejp.

1. Chevreul, Michel-Eugène, Recherches chimiques sur les corps gras d’origine animale, Levrault, Paris, 1823, 485 p., p. 215. 204

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z A predestined name The family name Chevreul was probably originally a nickname for a man as agile as a roe deer, chevreuil in French, from the Latin capreolus, “roe deer”, derivative of capra, “goat”. In his 1810’s study on the composition of fats, Chevreul named two of the constituents of butter, caproic acid and capric acid, respectively, because of their characteristic goat smell. Later on, it was discovered that the acid called capric was actually a mixture of two acids, one of which was still called capric acid and the other caprylic acid. In short, we know today thanks to Chevreul the following acids: caproic (with 6 carbons), caprylic (with 8 carbons) and capric (with 10 carbons), and so we see in this sentence four names in self-evident relation with the Latin capra, “goat”. Thus the name of the goat is reflected in the name of caprolactam, with 6 carbons, based on caproic acid, which is the raw material of polyamide 6, also called nylon 6. But all this tells us nothing about the name of the butane or about the animal it hides.

z Research on butter Chevreul’s work also allowed him to isolate the 4-carbon fatty acid, which he called butyric acid (he wrote ), derived from the Latin butyrum, “butter”, because of its characteristic rancid buttery smell. Subsequently, the element but(y)- was taken over to form the names of the 4-carbon molecules, including, with the suffix -ane of the alkanes, that of butane. H H H H H C C C C H H H H H ➜ n-butane

H H H O H C C C C H H H O H

and n-butyric acid.

From the Latin butyrum comes the name of butter, in German Butter, and in French beurre, with the disappearance of the t of butyrum (which 205

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linguists call “fall of the intervocalic consonant”, a common phenomenon in French). As a result, the link between the names of butane and butter is more visible in English and German than in French, while it is quite unsuspected in Spanish, where the name of butter is mantequilla (of uncertain origin, unrelated to its Latin name). But we still don’t have the name of the animal we are looking for.

z From cheese to butter The etymology of the Latin butyrum, “butter”, gives the solution, because this name is borrowed from the Greek bouturon, formed from the elements bou- and -turon, where -turon derives from the Greek turos, “cheese”, and bou- derives from the Greek bous, “bovine, ox or cow”, here “cow” of course. The Greek bouturon thus etymologically means “cow’s cheese”, and we discover that it is finally the cow that hides under the name butane.

z Epilogue for butter Etymologically, talking about cow butter would be a kind of perfect pleonasm, whereas talking about goat butter, also studied by Chevreul, would be incongruous! But naturally, usage takes precedence over the etymology.

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➜ Under

butane is hidden the Greek name of the cow!

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3

A name that fits the bill keratin and kerosene Keratin molecule Protofibril Microfibril Macrofibril

Cortex Medulla

Hair is 95% composed of a fibrous protein called keratin. The name keratin is a scientific term, but it is well-known and even familiar to the general public because quite a lot of shampoo and other cosmetic brands display the word Keratin, or Kératine in French, or derived names such as Phytokeratin®, Keraliss® or Kérastase® on their packaging.

All these products are intended for care of hair, the name of which comes from the same Germanic root as German Hair cross-section: © Centre Clauderer. Haar, “hair”. From the Latin capillus, “hair”, comes the adjective capillary, “relative to hair”. But it is clear that keratin does not derive from hair, nor from capillus, nor from the Greek thrix, trikhos, “hair”, nor even from the Greek komê, “(strands of) hair”, which we could think of (from komê comes komêtês, “comet”, the tail of which in the sky is compared to strands of hair). We finally realize that the name keratin does not refer to the hair at all, but... to the horn. Cuticule

➜ Hair

has a microfibre structure based on keratin molecules, i.e., proteins containing 18 different amino acids.

z Hair does not have the exclusivity of keratin The name Keratin appeared in 1827 in a publication by the German biochemist Hünefeld, who presented the name as a synonym for Hornsubstanz (“substance of the horn”) and thus obviously formed Keratin from the Greek keras, keratos, “horn”. Indeed, Hünefeld stated that the 208

A name that fits the bill

➜ Kérastase®,

L’Oréal’s hair product line.

© L’Oréal.

keratin is the main component of the “horns, hooves, claws, nails, feathers, scales and (shell) plates” of certain animals, and is found in humans in nails, hair and also in the epidermis. The name of keratin was therefore coined in German, Keratin, itself borrowed by other languages, including English keratin (attested in 1850) and French kératine, quoted in the 1892 supplement of the Wurtz dictionary, which in 1876 still used épidermose, the first name given in French to keratin. In this respect, the keratinisation of the skin can lead to keratosis. On the other hand, keratitis refers to an inflammation of the cornea of the eye, from the Greek keratoeidês, “cornea”, i.e., “(membrane) like horn”, as does the word cornea itself, which derives from the Latin cornu, “horn”.

z Interlude inspired by Indo-European We observe that the word horn, as well as Horn in German, has the initial [h] where it is a [k] in Greek (keras) and Latin (cornu, hence the French corne). It is worth mentioning that this same correspondence 209

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is found in a whole series of words linked to Indo-European roots beginning with the consonant *kw-, evolving to [k] in Greek and Latin, and to [h] in Germanic languages. In the following table, we can see this formal similarity between the names of the horn and the heart, and also of the stag, at least if we use its less usual name in English, hart. Indo-European root

Greek

Latin

French

English

German

*ker-

keras

cornu

corne

horn

Horn

-

cervus

cerf

hart

Hirsch

kardia

cor, cordis

cœur

heart

Herz

*kerd-

Now we see that the initial Greek k is preserved in English and German names of keratin, and this is because this word was forged in the 19th century, while a “natural” evolution from the Greek keratinos, “relative to the horn”, could have led to “ceratin” in French and “heratin” in English. But returning to chemistry, in regard to names beginning with ker-, and if one is not afraid of an abrupt change of subject (we say cock to ass in French), the word kerosene comes to mind.

z Epilogue and incongruous connection The name kerosene appeared around 1850 in the United States to designate a hydrocarbon used for lighting, invented by the American geologist Gesner (it was a century later that kerosene became the fuel for airplanes). But is the ker- of kerosene the one in keratin? No, kerosene is more viscous than gasoline, its consistency is close to that of molten wax, and it competed with candle wax. That’s why kerosene is formed on the Greek kêros (κηρός), “beeswax”, unrelated to keras (κέρας), “horn”. There is no more etymological relation than a semantic relation between keratin and kerosene. At the most one we can notice, even if it’s a bit far-fetched, that ➜ Beeswax (in Greek kêros) can be good for keratin beeswax is used in some products as hair gels. (from the Greek keras)! ©atanga.fr 210

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➜ Keratin

is the main component of horns and hair.

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4

A discovery in the liver heparin

➜ What

is the relation between heparin and geese?

The name of this powerful anticoagulant appears in 1918 in an American publication where the English name heparin is created from the Ancient Greek hêpar, “liver”2. This English name was adapted in other languages: héparine in French, Heparin in German, heparina in Spanish, eparina in Italian...

2. Howell, William and Holt, Emmett, Two new factors in blood coagulation - heparin and pro-antithrombine, American Journal of Physiology, 47, 1918-19, p. 328. 212

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The name heparin is therefore of the same family as the adjective hepatic (already in Greek, hêpatikos, “relative to the liver”), or as the name of the disease hepatitis. However, this molecule is not secreted exclusively by the liver. On the contrary, it is present in most organs in mammals: thus today, commercial heparin is mainly derived from the pig intestine. The link between hêpar and heparin therefore has a fortuitous side to it: it only reminds us that the anticoagulant activity of heparin was discovered (in 1916) from extracts of liver cells, of a dog in this case.

➜ Heparin.

But what piques curiosity, as far as etymology is concerned, is the great difference in form between hêpar in Ancient Greek and liver, or foie in French. Moreover, even in Modern Greek, sukôti, “liver”, has nothing to do with hêpar: and we then realize that, against all odds, sukôti derives from sukon, the Greek name… for a fig.

z The liver in antiquity The Ancients placed great importance on the liver in humans. During animal sacrifices, the priests examined the entrails, especially the liver, each part of which was dedicated to a particular aspect of divination. Animal sacrifices were followed by ritual meals, where undoubtedly one could combine the useful (religious) with pleasure (gastronomic). The liver was considered a choice piece, often with figs. In addition, the Greeks already practised the feeding of geese, preferably with figs, and thus obtained a highly appreciated foie gras, which they named hêpar sukôton, i.e., “liver with figs”. And this is how, starting with heparin, we arrive here at this evocation of the geese, and at the unexpected illustration which follows.

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➜ The

delightful thought is that today we appreciate foie gras… with figs!

As the culinary side gradually prevailed, the liver was referred to less and less by the name hêpar, which specialized in religious or medical use, and more and more by sukôton (adjective that became a noun), which finally led to sukôti, “liver”, in Modern Greek. The Romans continued the Greek traditions and this explains why the Latin ficatum, derived from ficus, “fig, fig tree”, first referred to goose foie gras, then finally to liver in general. And it is from ficatum that the names of the liver come in Italian, fegato, and in Spanish, hígado (with the passage from /f/ to /h/ frequent in Spanish, where the fig is said higo). In French, the culmination of a radical phonetic evolution is this very short name, foie, where the name of the fig is no longer discernible at all. Finally, the name liver, as well as its equivalent in other Germanic languages, as Leber in German, can be related to the Greek liparos, “fatty”, from lipos, “fat” (hence the element lipo-, “fat”). Some dictionaries put together liver and to live, but this is not certified by all linguists, even if we commonly say “life is in the liver!”.

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z Hellenistic epilogue The diversity of liver names in the modern languages of Europe is not reflected in the names of heparin, which are derived, through English, from the name of the liver in ancient Greek. Here again, Greek plays its role as the world’s scientific language, as we have seen with regard to starch (cf. Ch. 7, Section 1). By the way, we can note the name of the liver in Esperanto: hepato.

➜ Bronze

model of a sheep’s liver (around 2nd century BC). Piece of Etruscan origin, found in Piacenza (Italy).

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➜ Heaven

is a real zoo. It is illuminated by 88 constellations, almost half of which have an animal name, real or imaginary, often linked to a mythological legend. Their official international names are in Latin. The best known are undoubtedly the Great Bear (Ursa major), the Little Bear (Ursa minor) and the constellations of the zodiac, in Greek, zôdiakos, derived from zôon, “animal”. Half of the constellations were named in the 2nd century by the astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. There were then five other contributors, including the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius, to whom we owe the Little Fox and the Goose (Vulpecula cum Ansere) at the end of the 17th century. Today, this constellation is called the Little Fox (Vulpecula), and its brightest star is the Goose (Anser). A clever, cunning fox, who ate the goose! English astronomical map of 1825.

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9

Where we discover the history of common, household names 1 The secret of porcelain/china . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2 A product that makes things clean… and white. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

224

3 A story with twists, turns and bounces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

228

4 A brilliant inventor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

232

5 Double-purpose glass: for safety and aesthetics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

236

6 From the still to the refinery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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THE NAMES OF MODERN, HOUSEHOLD, CONSUMER PRODUCTS HAVE A HISTORY... Let’s start with the origins. The word alchemy is borrowed from the Medieval Latin alchemia, coming from the Arabic al-kīmiyā, itself perhaps from the Egyptian kemi, “magic”, or from a Greek origin: khumeia, “mixture (of saps)” (from khumos, “sap”), or rather khemeia, “art of smelting ore”. From these Greek words would also come the Medieval Latin chemia, becoming chymia, then chemistry. This obscure etymology is a reflection of the obscure discipline practised since antiquity by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Arab and Medieval alchemists, with a marked interest in metallurgy. The alchemists tried all sorts of combinations by mixing, distilling, calcining..., but without any means to characterize the substances used or obtained nor to quantify their evolution. Thus, a German alchemist in search of gold arrived fortuitously at the discovery of phosphorus in 1669 (cf. Ch. 1). In the next section, we will see that European ceramists had not discovered – until the very beginning of the 18th century – the secret of porcelain (commonly known as china), which had been retained for centuries in China, and which was based on the choice of the right clay, kaolin. And it was in the second half of the Enlightenment (the Siècle des Lumières in French) that the empiricism of alchemy gave way to the approach of chemistry, culminating in the publication of Lavoisier’s Traité élémentaire de chimie in 1789. The foundations for a more formal and rational development of chemistry were laid. Chemistry and the Industrial Revolution The increase and advancement of scientific and technical knowledge accelerated dramatically at the end of the 18th and throughout the 19th centuries. In chemistry, many new substances appeared in the two main traditional fields: inorganic chemistry, including metallurgy, and organic chemistry, itself interacting with biochemistry. Many of these substances have been mentioned in previous chapters, and the 2nd and 3rd sections of this chapter give two significant examples of industrial development: – bleach, the product which makes things clean… and white, in inorganic chemistry; – natural rubber, a story which twists, turns and bounces, in organic chemistry. From natural polymers to artificial polymers The manufacture of rubber is a good example of the use of a natural polymer. Later on, in the 19th century, artificial polymers were developed by chemically modifying natural polymers, such as cellulose from which celluloid, cellulose acetate and textile fibres such as rayon and artificial silk were derived. 218

The amazing history of element names

Synthetic polymers, in the 20th century After natural then artificial polymers, the next step was taken by Leo Baekeland, a brilliant inventor who, in 1907, patented the first synthetic polymer to be marketed in history (cf. 4th Section of this chapter). However, at that time, it was yet not known that giant molecules could exist, a fact which the German chemist Staudinger established only around 1925. He then created the word macromolecule (in German Makromolekül) for a molecule of more than the order of magnitude of 1 000 atoms. From then on, the concept of polymerization was understood and a large number of synthetic polymers were invented in about thirty years. The very first to be commercialized ones were: – polystyrene in 1930, the name of which, as we saw in the previous chapter, was inspired by the name of the resin of a tree, the liquidambar; – polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), which appears in the 5th Section of this chapter, double-purpose glass: for safety and aesthetics; – and then were developed, mainly, polyvinyl chlorides (PVC), polyamides, polyesters, polyethylenes, polyurethanes, polycarbonates, polypropylenes (in 1957). About the word polymer The segment -mer of polymer comes from the Greek meros, “part”, from which also derive monomer, dimer, elastomer, ionomer, isomer... The segment poly- comes from the Greek polus, which can mean “many”, or only “several”. Thus a tetrahedron is a particular (4 face) polyhedron. Moreover, when Berzelius proposed, around 1830, the term polymer in chemistry, it was for designating a molecule with a chemical composition multiple of only a few times that of another; since then, the existence of giant molecules had not yet been imagined. And when Staudinger proved this existence, one continued to speak of polymer, but specifying high polymer to designate molecules containing a large number of elements, and not only several. Then the term oligomer, from the Greek oligos, “few in number” was created, for example for a tetramer, which we will not call a polymer. In conclusion, in polymer, as well as in specific names such as polystyrene, the element poly- now has a restricted meaning to “many” (not just “several”). Chemistry and chemical engineering Distillation was one of the basic tools used by alchemists in their experimental adventures, and it remains today an important process in chemical engineering, as illustrated in the 6th Section of this chapter, from the still (alambic in French) to the refinery.

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1

The secret of porcelain/china kaolin and porcelain

Kaolin takes us back to Imperial China and also gives us the opportunity to evoke a surprising etymology, perhaps one of the most astonishing that exist.

z A Chinese name The name kaolin appears in French in 1712 in one of the Edifying and Curious Letters of the Jesuit Father d’Entrecolles, a missionary in China, who was then staying in Jingdezhen (500 km southwest of Shanghai). This city had been known for centuries for the excellence of its porcelain, a reputation that continues to this day. However, Father d’Entrecolles was thus divulging one of the secrets of porcelain manufacture at the time: the use of a special white clay, extracted from a deposit near Gaoling, a village that later became part of the Jingdezhen agglomeration. Gaoling is written in Chinese 高岭, consisting of 高 gao, or kao, “high”, and 岭 ling, “hill”, which recalls the existence of a nearby hill.

➜ Porcelain

is a kaolin-based ceramic, named after a Chinese village, Gaolin. 220

The secret of porcelain/china

Therefore the historical importance of this now exhausted deposit is the origin of the French name kaolin, adopted throughout the world: caolín in Spanish, kaolin in English, Kaolin in German. Al2O3 . 2 SiO2, 2 H2O

tetrahedral layer O OH Al octahedral layer Si ➜ Structure

of a kaolinite sheet, the main constituent of kaolin.

z From kaolin to porcelain Until the beginning of the 18th century, Europe imported all its fine porcelain from China, where the secret was kept, and this explains the common name of porcelain in English, china, and also bone china. In fact, obtaining a translucent porcelain required the vitrification of a paste containing kaolin, a process that was only developed in the 1710’s in Europe, based on revelations of Chinese artisanal knowledge and also on work carried out in Germany, in Meissen, where the famous Dresden china (porcelaine de Saxe in French) originated.

➜ Porcelain

is a fine and translucent ceramic. 221

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But what is intriguing, as far as etymology is concerned, is the name porcelain, which is somewhat reminiscent of porcine, which seems a priori to be the result of pure chance...

z In French, porcelaine is first a shell name It is in the 1298 Old French edition of Marco Polo’s Book of Wonders, or Devisement of the World, that this name appears to designate at first a sea shell, then used as currency in Asia, and still ➜ Shell called porcelaine in French, or cowry in English (from its name in Tamil). called porcelaine in French today There are hundreds of species, including this (cowry in English), a use akin to one, Cypraea tigris (named by Linnaeus after Cypris, the Greek nickname for Aphrodite), and that of wampum shells by North others, white, which were used as currency. Amerindians (wampum comes from Algonquian wampumpeag, itself from wap, “white”, + umpe, “thread”, + -ag). Later in his text, Marco Polo mentions a Chinese city where “porcellaine (sic) bowls, large and small, the most beautiful that one can imagine”1, were made. It is therefore by analogy of appearance with the glazed and translucent shell that the name porcelaine was given in French to the precious ceramic material, as if men had wanted to reproduce this marvel of nature. Some even thought that the secret was to incorporate shell powder into the porcelain paste. The question now is: why was the shell named porcelaine in French?

z A shell with suggestive shapes The French name porcelaine was in fact a transcription of the Italian porcellana, first referring to the shell, and by analogy to the ceramic material. In Italian, porcellana is visibly a derivative of porcella, “little sow”, or porcello, “piglet”, from Latin porcella, porcellus, diminutives of porcus, “pig”. 1. TLF, Le Trésor de la Langue Française, CNRS, 1993, TLF informatisé: http://atilf.atilf.fr/, under porcelaine. 222

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Certainly, the shell, seen from above or from the side, vaguely resembles a little pig. Thus, on Brittany’s coasts, one collects small cowries, to which one still sometimes gives the familiar name of little pig (petit cochon in French). Basically, this metaphor can be compared with the cochonnet (target ball) in the popular French Mediterranean pétanque bowling game, with its smooth, yellowish, flesh like, round shape reminiscent of a pig’s rump! There is, however, another etymological interpretation, more colourful and daring, which is used by most dictionaries: the same shell, seen in a different way, would remind us of the procreative organ of the sow, which, as we know, is very characteristic of this animal. This would be consistent with the feminine gender of porcellana. It must be said that the shapes of shells have always given rise to more or less scabrous comparisons, and that the sow is the source of a certain number of evocative metaphors. For example, because the nut is the female part of the screw-nut system, the French écrou, “nut”, comes from the Latin scrofa, “sow”, and even more obviously in Portuguese, porca means both “sow” and “nut”.

z Epilogue: to throw beads to swine It is therefore certain, surprising as it may be, that the Latin porcus, “pig”, is, through Italian and French, the origin of the name of porcelain, from Saxony in Germany, from Sèvres or Limoges in France, or known as Wedgewood china in England with its iconic gold rim. This name, like that of kaolin, has spread to other languages of Europe: porcelana in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as Porzellan in German, where the surprise is perhaps even greater because the name of the pig (Schwein) is not at all visible in Porzellan.

➜ China porcelain.

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2

A product that makes things clean… and white bleach

If there’s one chemical that’s really popular, it’s bleach, the ultimate disinfectant. But what does bleach mean? It means that this product is able to bleach, i.e., to whiten, or to discolour, any medium. This word bleach is related to the same Germanic root as the French blanc, “white”, itself borrowed from Old French by English blank.

➜ Bleach

= Na+ Cl- and Na+ ClO- in aqueous solution. The release of oxygen (2 ClO → 2 Cl- + O2) explains the action of bleach as both in bleaching and as an disinfectant.

However, we are here in a case where the French denomination has nothing to do with the English, namely eau de Javel, or javel, “bleach”, which would translate loosely as “Javel’s water”. Could Javel be the name of a chemist? A bit like Dakin’s solution (so to speak “pharmaceutical” bleach) is named after the English chemist who invented it. Or is it like eau de Cologne, named after a place? And if so, after which place? Of course, there is a Javel subway station in Paris... but we may be led to believe in a simple coincidence. However, as we will see, this homonymy is not fortuitous.

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z From the Javel Islet to the Javel district, Paris The Javel metro station, the rue de Javel, the church of Saint-Christophe-de-Javel and the port of Javel on the river Seine are all located in the Javel district, which occupies the south-western part of the 15th arrondissement of Paris. Very recently (in 2003) the place du Moulinde-Javel was even created, very close to the site of an old windmill that had been built on a small islet, by the banks of the Seine, and joined to this bank in the 18th century. This islet is mentioned in a 13th century manuscript in Medieval Latin under the name insula de javeto, which is the first known attestation of the name written Javet or Javelle, and finally Javel, the locality which was attached to Paris in 18602.

➜ Excerpt

from the Cassini plan (circa 1756), where one sees the mill of Javel (here ) on the edge of the Seine, not far from Issy, today Issy-les-Moulineaux (where we see moulin, the name of the mill in French).

z From Berthollet liqueur to bleach In 1778, a chemical factory was created at a place called Javel which, at the time, was sparsely inhabited, to produce sulphuric acid in particular. In 1785, the ➜ The

Javel Mill in 1780.

2. Périn, Michel, Le moulin, la guinguette et la manufacture de Javel, Bulletin de la société historique et archéologique du XVe arrondissement de Paris, n° 21, 2003, p. 65. 225

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chemist Berthollet installed his original process for the production of a chlorinated water, then called Berthollet’s lye, which was developed for bleaching fabrics. However, Berthollet did not reach an agreement with the plant operators, who considerably improved the process and renamed the lye Javel already in 1791, and then eau de Javel. Thus, the Javel in the subway is indeed the same as the one in eau de Javel.

➜ Wheat,

However, as an English reader might imagine, the name Javel is not generally used outside of French: Javel is said in Spanish lejía (from the Latin lixiva, “lye”), and there are several names in German, such as Chlorwasser or Bleichmittel (from bleichen, “bleach”, and Mittel, “agent”), while Javellelauge (from Lauge, “lye”) tends to be used less.

sheaved in swathes.

Wikipedia, license cc-by-sa, 2.0,Trish Steel.

z Javel, a very French, and even Gallic name In a common French dictionary, we find javel (eau de…), javelliser, “to bleach”, but also a rather old agricultural term, javelle, “salt pile, handful of cut cereals”, and the verb javeler, “to lay in swathes”. The word javelle, in fact, is part of the small number (between 100 and 200) of French words of Gallic origin. This name connects to a root which means “to take with the hand”, to which is attached the name javelin, from Old French javeline, today javelot, also of Gallic origin. In Old French, by analogy with the swathes in the fields, the names javel, javelle generally referred to all kinds of mounds, and in particular a pile of sand and silt formed by the overflow of a river, i.e., a coastal island (today called in French javeau). It is probably to this last meaning that the geographical name Javel, originally the name of an islet on the banks of the Seine, corresponds.

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z Salty epilogue From the end of the 19th  century, the French javelle also refers to another heap, a pile of salt on the edge of a salt marsh. And this suggests a shortcut to a conclusion: when, by electrolysis of sodium chloride, one passes in French from salt collected in javelle, “salt pile”, to eau de Javel, “bleach”, in fact two words of the same Gallic origin are connected.

➜ Javel

in the Paris Subway station Javel is the same as Javel in eau de Javel, “bleach”.

Wikipedia, licence cc-by-2.0, Guilhem Vellut.

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3

A story with twists, turns and bounces natural rubber and ebonite

The American inventor Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) discovered the sulphur vulcanization of natural rubber in 1839, thanks to a succession of coincidences that he recounted himself in his memoirs. He also discovered that by pushing this vulcanization further, he obtained a material that was no more elastic but very hard, and black like ebony, hence its name ebonite.

➜ Charles

Goodyear discovered vulcanization with sulphur in 1839.

But let us first of all be interested in the rubber, and especially in the name of the reaction from which it all started, vulcanization. 228

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z From the elastic gum of the Amerindians... to the eraser of the English... The French name caoutchouc, “rubber”, is borrowed from an Amerindian language from Ecuador, coa-o-chu, meaning “weeping wood”, to designate this elastic gum known in South America for centuries, and discovered by Europeans in 1493. In the Amazon basin around 1736 the tree called hevea (from Quechua) was found, which produces latex which, when dried, becomes an elastic material sometimes called – depending on the language and the context – rubber, sometimes (elastic) gum. This last name comes, by the Latin gummi, from the Greek kommi, meaning any secretion of vegetable origin (cf. gum arabic, or gum ammoniac), and rubber comes from the use of this gum as an eraser, especially for pencil, invented in England around 17703. What is striking in the following table is precisely the particular case of English where the name of this eraser, rubber (to rub out, or erase), has become the general name for rubber, the elastic gum. English

French

Spanish

German

(elastic) gum

gomme (élastique)

goma (elastica)

(elastisch) Gummi

rubber

gomme (à effacer)

goma (de borrar)

Radiergummi

rubber

caoutchouc

caucho

Kautschuk

Coincidence: just as graphite owes its name to its use in a pencil lead (cf. Ch. 1), rubber owes its name to the pencil eraser, two applications that are as mutually marginal!

z From the Roman god of fire and forges to vulcanization The verb to vulcanize is not due to Goodyear, who used the verb to metallize, as if to indicate that sulphur-treated rubber became solid as metal. But during his time, the English chemist Thomas Hancock, having taken some samples from Goodyear’s factory, also studied the reaction between rubber and sulphur, which he finally patented in 3. Figuier, Louis, Industrie du caoutchouc et de la gutta percha, Les merveilles de l’industrie, ou description des principales industries modernes, Jouvet, Furne et Cie, Paris, 1873-1877, tome 2, p. 549. 229

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England at the end of 1843, a little before Goodyear in the United States, which provoked a controversy: the courts ruled in Goodyear’s favour, who however did not recover from the damage and died ruined. And it was in Hancock’s English patent that the verb to vulcanize appeared, which ➜ The vulcanization of polyisoprene, resulting in rubber with a low was adopted by all languages. According sulphur content, and ebonite with to Hancock’s “personal account”, the a high sulphur content. idea came from his friend Brockedon, an artist-painter, writer and inventor, who had helped him in his work. Brockedon referred, with some emphasis, to Vulcan, the blacksmith of mythology and the god of volcanoes, which spit out sulphur. He thus superseded Goodyear’s metallurgical comparison, which was decidedly ignored. It should be noted that vulcanizing a rubber historically means cross-linking it with sulphur, i.e., creating bridges between molecular chains to form a network – and then cross-linking it with any agent, even other than sulphur (in English, we say to vulcanize, or more often to cure). It should be noted here that, in nature, proteins are cross-linked by the cystine bridges -CH2-S-S-CH2-, one of the amino acids, as if the proteins had been vulcanized with sulphur, so to speak.

z And here comes Winged-footed Mercury again Later, in 1898, entrepreneur Franck Seiberling (not related to the Goodyear family) founded the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, name paying homage to the man he considered the true father of vulcanization. As early as 1900, he introduced a new reference to mythology, the winged foot of Mercury into the company’s logo: a symbol of the agility of shopkeepers and travellers equipped with good tyres!

➜ The

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is the 3rd largest tyre manufacturer in the world, after Bridgestone and Michelin. 230

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Among the world’s leading tyre producers, alongside Goodyear are other great names in the industrial history of rubber, such as Bridgestone (anglicized name of its Japanese founder, Ishibashi), Michelin, Dunlop, Pirelli... and Hankook... Thomas Hancock? No, Hankook is the anglicized name of Korea in Korean! Chance or irony of this story.

z Musical epilogue Ebonite (sometimes called hard rubber) has had ➜ “Concept” saxophone mouthpiece made of a very different fate than industrial rubber. In ebonite (manufactured by Henri SELMER Paris, English, the link between ebony and ebonite is the worldwide leading obvious. It is less clear in French (ébène/ébonite), saxophone manufacturer). in Spanish (ebano/ebonita), in German (Ebenholz/Ebonit)... But objects made of ebonite remind us of the precious wood: ebony. This resin is used in several upmarket applications, such as saxophone mouthpieces or luxury items for the office.

➜ Roman

coin issued in 46 BC: on the obverse side, Juno Moneta, Vulcan's mother; on the reverse side, Vulcan’s tools (the anvil, hammer and tongs), as well as his ritual blacksmith’s bonnet. The Latin Moneta is the origin of English money. CGB Numismatique Paris.

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4

➜ What

A brilliant inventor bakelite, phenol, formaldehyde, formalin, formic acid, melamine and formica

is the relation between the formica of this chair and the Latin formica,“ant”?

➜ Bakelite®,

The Belgian-born American chemist Leo Baekeland developed the first synthetic polymer in industrial history from phenol and formaldehyde, under the brand name Bakelite®, registered in 1907. Now a common name in English, as well as in French bakélite, German Bakelit or Spanish baquelita, this word has a fairly obvious etymology, which is far from being the case for the names phenol and formaldehyde, which we will also analyse.

synthesized from phenol and formaldehyde.

Wikimedia Commons, license cc-by-sa-3.0, Dirk Hünniger.

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z Bakelite an eponym birth In Ancient Greece, the eponym (from the Greek epi, “on”, and ônumos, “name”) was the high ranking magistrate whose name served as a sort of “nickname” in his year of function. By analogy, a person whose name is adopted for something is referred to as the eponym of that thing. For example, the German chemist Emil Erlenmeyer is the eponym of the Erlenmeyer flask.

➜ Red

ant (classified by Linnaeus in the genus Formica) in projection posture of formic acid. www.ardennesmagazine.be - photo Haentjens.

Thus, Baekeland is the eponym of the bakelite: Baekel(and) + suffix -ite. And well-deserved it was, because his innovation was one of the most remarkable and prolific of the entire modern industrial era. Formophenolic resins were the first synthetic plastic materials, the success of which came from their great ease of forming (from the Latin forma, “mould, form”)... but formaldehyde has nothing to do with form or shaping.

z From the ant to formic acid and formaldehyde It has long been known that red ants project an acidic, stinging venom to defend their anthill. By distilling a decoction of such ants, it was possible to obtain a mixture in which the Swedish chemist Bergman identified in 1775 a new acid, qualified as formic (from the Latin formica, “ant”). Berthelot gave its formula (HCOOH) in 1855, and the formelement will be then used to designate molecules of the same family, with a single carbon, such as chloroform (CHCl3) in 1834, formaldehyde (H2C=O) in 1882 and later on its aqueous solution, formalin, or, as in French, formol, a previous trademark. Why this suffix -ol, which evokes an alcohol? Precisely because with water, formaldehyde is almost completely transformed into polyalcohol. But in everyday use, at least in French, formol has become synonymous with formaldehyde, although in this case, the suffix -ol is incongruous: thus, in the French phrase phenol-formol, this suffix is only logical for phenol, which is an alcohol. 233

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z Formaldehyde or methanal The French chemists Dumas and Péligot, in 1835, showed that the distillation of wood produces an alcohol, the “spirit of wood”, which oxidizes into formic acid, and therefore contains a single carbon. But instead of keeping the form- element to name it, they introduced the element meth-, from the Greek methu, “fermented drink”, which will lead Hofmann to name in 1867 the alkane CH4 methane, hence methanol. A strange choice because methanol, also known as wood alcohol, far from being a nice drink, turned out to be a fearsome poison. From all this results a kind of hybrid family, where the preferred use is: methane, formic acid (rather than methanoic acid), methanol, formaldehyde (rather than methanal) and formalin. In the English formaldehyde as well as Formaldehyd in German, the element form- does not evoke the ant, Ameise in German (hence Ameisensäure for formic acid in German). Finally, methane, before being known chemically, was used as a lighting gas as early as the end of the 18th century, and this opportunely brings us to phenol.

z From lighting gas to phenol In 1836, the French chemist Laurent studied molecules extracted from “tar produced by lighting gas plants”. The names of these aromatic molecules could have been derived from benzene, but Laurent wanted to avoid confusion by creating the element phen-, from the Greek phainein, “to illuminate”, because of the lighting gas at the origin of his work: an indirect, complicated as gas-works, relation. Then in 1843, phenol (other name of hydroxybenzene) was formed from the element phen-, hence another hybrid family in which the radicals phenyl (-C6 H5) and benzyl (-CH2-C6H5) are found side by side.

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z Epilogue: it’s all in the form Phenol-formaldehyde resins, or phenolic resins, have paved the way for other thermosetting plastic materials4 such as melamine-formaldehyde resins, or amino plastics. It was through his work, published ➜ Logo of FORMICA GROUP, in 1834, that the German chemist Liebig which markets Formica®. had obtained the melam, and from it the melamine : melam is an arbitrary name, created ex nihilo and claimed as such by Liebig5, melamine being simply its derivative, melam + -ine. Aminoplast resins are known by the brand name Formica®, which has become a common name in English as well as in French. Formica? Ant? Not at all, this brand name, created in the United States in 1913, comes from “for mica”, i.e., “substitute for mica”, because these laminates replaced mica, then used in electrical insulation! Chance really did the trick here.

➜ La

Séquanaise, an old French bakelite telephone (1924).

Association Adolphe Cochery.

4.  A thermosetting plastic is a material which, under the action of heat, gradually hardens to an irreversible solid state. 5.  Liebig, Justus, Sur quelques combinaisons d’Azote, Annales de chimie et de physique, Crochard, Paris, t. 56, 1834, p. 16. 235

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5

Double-purpose glass: for safety and aesthetics plexiglas, altuglas, perspex, lucite, acrolein and acrylic acid

It is not exceptional for a commercial name, when used very widely, to be adopted in common language. We just have seen the cases of ebonite and bakelite in this chapter, and we can also think of nylon. The case of plexiglas is similar: it is a common name found in the usual dictionaries, but its ® origin is a brand name registered in 1933 by ➜ Plexiglas , a material for everyday consumption and art too. a German chemical company (whose name disappeared following the restructuring of German chemistry). Plexiglas® is composed of the element plexi-, from the Latin plexus, a past participle of the verb plectere, “to bend, roll, intertwine”, and the German Glas, “glass”. This name designates a glass that can be bent, thus can be easily shaped: a logical name for this material, the polymer of methyl methacrylate, or PMMA (for Poly Methyl MethAcrylate), which has the transparency of mineral glass, but not its rigidity nor brittleness. It is also called acrylic glass.

➜ Molecular

structure of poly(methyl methacrylate), or PMMA, where the intertwined chains form an amorphous plastic material.

236

Double-purpose glass: for safety and aesthetics WHERE DOES THE WORD ACRYLIC COME FROM? In 1838, the German pharmacist Brandes named Acrol a pungent substance (Latin acer, acris, “sharp”) that comes from the decomposition of fatty substances, such as oil (Oel in German), by heat. Berzelius specifies the name acrolein and its structure is established a little later. H2C

acroleine

O

Oxidation

H

H2C

acrylic acid

O OH

On the acr(olein) radical is named acrylic acid, hence the acrylates and methacrylates that make up the bulk of acrylic resins, used in the composition of many consumer products (paints, varnishes, glues, glass, baby nappies, etc.).

z The PMMA saga in French dictionaries There are three common dictionaries of French language (Larousse, Robert and Hachette), which are republished each year with a few words more or less, and dated annually. The Petit Larousse was created in 1905, and the name plexiglas appears in the 1950 edition (as first, then in the Petit Larousse 1952). As for the Petit Robert and Hachette, plexiglas has been present since their creation, in 1967 and 1980 respectively. But if one consults the Petit Robert with plexiglas, one notices that it mentions “➤ also altuglas”, and vice versa. Indeed, the name altuglas has been present since the Petit Robert 1977, and it also appeared in the Petit Larousse 1989, then in the Hachette 1994. Let’s mention, however, that plexiglas entered the present, 9th edition, of the Dictionary of the Académie française, but not altuglas. This name altuglas was also originally the name of a brand name, Altuglas®, which initially competed with Plexiglas ® in Europe in the production of PMMA. Altuglas® was registered

➜ Twizy

is an all-electric car from Renault. Its transparent roof is made of nanostructured PMMA, Altuglas®ShieldUp. Photo: Altuglas®- Arkema/Renault group.

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in 1958 by Altulor, then a subsidiary of Alsthom and Ugilor, which is made up of (company) Ugine + (Houillères de) Lorraine. As a result of industrial restructuring in France, these three company names have disappeared, but the etymology of the element ALTU- keeps a trace of it: ALTU = AL + T + U = AL of Alsace + T from Thomson + U from Ugine, because Alsthom came from the Alsacienne de constructions mécaniques and Thomson-Houston. In Altulor, there was Alsace and Lorraine! Ultimately, the name Altuglas® is made up of the element altu- and -glas, the name of glass in German, as an echo to Plexiglas®. We sometimes find misspellings, plexiglass and altuglass, due to an influence of the English word glass.

z A special synonymy: plexiglas and altuglas These two names therefore come from two competing brands of the same product, a situation that is probably unique in the French language. They are synonyms, which, in the modern sense of the term, does not mean “of identical meanings” (we consider that “true” synonyms do not exist), but only “of very similar, almost identical meanings”. Words have meaning, but also a connotation, and this is what really distinguishes the common names altuglas and plexiglas.

➜ This

table has an original design. Its top is made of Altuglas®, and lovers of beautiful materials in furniture and decoration particularly appreciate the diversity of its appearance and colouring. Photo: Altuglas®- Arkema group.

The word plexiglas has a rather technical connotation. Its definitions in dictionaries mention the transparency of the product and its use as safety glass. The word altuglas has a rather aesthetic connotation. Its dictionary definitions mention a translucent or tinted material and its use in furniture.

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z Other names for PMMA While Plexiglas® was invented in Germany, ICI (the late Imperial Chemical Industries in the UK) started PMMA production in England under the trademark Perspex® (from Latin per, “through”, and specere, “to look at”), and a bit later, DuPont de Nemours did the same in the USA under the trademark Lucite® (from Latin lux, lucis, “light” + suffix -ite). These two names refer to the exceptional transparency of PMMA. Now if we look at dictionaries of different languages, we always will find the word plexiglas, plus also altuglas only in French dictionaries, plus also perspex only in ‘Queen’s English’ (viz. British, like Oxford, or Collins) and plus also lucite only in American English ones (like Merriam-Webster). Several special synonymies, plexiglas being the permanent feature!

z Luminous epilogue The etymologies of altuglas and plexiglas are of very different natures. The element plexi(glas) comes from Latin: it is a doublet of plexus, the name of this sensitive anatomical zone because it is full of intertwined nerve threads (cf. the Latin verb plectere in the sense of “to intertwine”). In a completely different register, we find the initials of late industrial societies in altu(glas), where the T ultimately honours Elihu Thomson. Founder of Thomson-Houston around 1880, he was a remarkable American engineer and industrialist, president of MIT in 1920 and 1921, and the holder of several hundred patents. A reference for an innovation-intensive material. Speaking of innovation, today it is possible to make optical fibres in PMMA.

➜ Optical

fibres in PMMA, like curved, interlaced wires (Latin plectere). 239

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6 5

From the still to the refinery white spirit, naphtha, naphthalene, bitumen, concrete, asphalt and tar

White spirit is a commonly used paint thinner made from petroleum. Its name is borrowed as such in Spanish, or with a hyphen, white-spirit, in French dictionaries, where it is therefore an Anglicism. There are a lot of anglicisms in oil vocabulary, where names dating back to antiquity are also used, as we shall see.

z Is white spirit really white? In fact, this passage from English to French is, as it is often the case, a one-to-one loan for a rendering, because the English spirit is a borrowing from the Old French espirit, which itself comes from the ➜ Is white spirit white? Latin spiritus, and became esprit in French. This Latin spiritus, linked to the verb spirare, “to breathe”, literally meant “breath” and figuratively “spirit, soul...” Then, spiritus in Late Latin, hence espirit, esprit in Old French, also designated among alchemists any light product obtained by distillation: we knew the spirit of wine (cf. today the wines and spirits), the spirit of wood, the spirit of salt... White spirit is therefore a spirit in the ancient sense of the term, here a relatively light distillate (highly flammable in any case) of naphtha, which itself is a petroleum distillate between gasoline and kerosene. White spirit is in fact a heavy naphtha (C8 to C12 hydrocarbons), but therefore lighter than kerosene, bitumen or tars, and it is, in opposition to these brown or black products, qualified as white, i.e., meaning “colourless” here. But where does the word naphtha come from? 240

From the still to the refinery

z Naphte was known in ancient times In Book  II of his Natural History, Pliny the Elder names in Latin naphtha “a product that flows like liquid bitumen in the vicinity of Babylon and in Parthia [Iran]. Fire has a great affinity for naphtha, and from wherever fire sees it, it imme➜ Naphthalene. diately throws itself at naphtha. It is in this way, it is said, that Medea burned her rival: this one had been approached the altar to offer a sacrifice when his crown caught fire”. Later on, in his French Dictionary of Chemistry (1778), Macquer defined naphte as “the whitest, most volatile & most fluid petroleum”. In fact, this French term, naphte, called naphtha in English as in Latin, has historically referred to light oil seeping from the surface of the ground, and known since ancient times, especially in the Middle East. In modern times, any oil cut fraction that has substantially the same characteristics is called in English naphtha, borrowed in French naphta. This name goes back to the Greek naphtha (νάφθα), probably borrowed from Persian. Depending on the language, its writing is either transliterated on the model of the Latin naphtha, as in German (Naphtha) and English (naphtha), or completely simplified as in Italian and Spanish (nafta). But French (naphta) adopts a middle way: the φ is transliterated into ph, and at the same time the θ is simplified into t instead of th. This kind of half-measure is usual in French, as shown by the comparison with English in a few examples: rythme and rhythm, ichtyologie and ichthyology... not to mention naphtalene and naphthalene, names derived from naphta and naphtha.

z Bitumen and concrete, asphalt and tar... We’ve just seen that Pliny compared naphtha to liquid bitumen. As for asphalt, it is a mixture, natural or synthetic, of bitumen and mineral fillers. Its name comes, through the Latin, from the Greek asphaltos, formed from the a- privative and the element -sphaltos (cf. sphaltês, “that makes something fall”), from the verb sphallein, “to make something fall”. The Greek word asphaltos therefore means “that prevents falling, that solidifies”, a logical name for products that have always been used as cements to solidify a structure, or to caulk Noah’s ark for example. 241

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Finally, we often confuse asphalt, bitumen... and tar, which is extracted from oil, coal, but also from wood, hence its name tar, in German, Teer, related to the English tree. The name of tar in French, goudron, comes from the Arabic of Egypt, qaṭrān, “tar”, through ancient forms catran (12th century), goutren, gouderon... Moreover, according to Pliny, it was from birch bark that bitumen was extracted by heating. It is deduced that the Latin bitumen probably comes from betulla, the Latin name, of Gallic origin, for the birch tree, whereas today bitumen is most often an almost solid petroleum derivative: in French béton, “concrete”, formerly betum, is borrowed from the Latin bitumen, while in English concrete, like the adjective concrete, “real”, comes from Latin verb concrescere, “to agglomerate”.

z At the epilogue, we stumbled upon concrete... From the volatile white spirit, we came to heavy products used on the macadam that perpetuates the name of its Scottish inventor, John L. MacAdam (1756-1836). Not to be confused, if we go off the road, with his fellow countryman chemist John Macadam (1827-1865), who lived in Australia, where his name inspired that of the macadamia nut. Two homonyms for two eponyms of two very different realities.

242

From the still to the refinery

➜ Noah’s

Ark, stronger than concrete: asphalt.

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➤

➤

➜ A

symbol of modernity, Raoul Dufy’s fresco (some segments here), The Electricity Fairy (1937), presents, in its centre, the gods of Olympus and all around it 109 scholars, including Dmitri Mendeleev and Humphry Davy. © Adagp, Paris, [2018] - Photo: Leemage/S. BIANCHETTI/Adagp images; Adagp, Paris, [2018] - Photo : Adagp images. 244

The epilogue to end all epilogues As we near the end of this Amazing history of element names, etymology has provided an overview of the names given to nearly 300 substances, including the 118 chemical elements known to date. But in this regard, we may wonder where does the word element itself come from?

z The elements in a line, please The word element is visibly not borrowed from Greek, where this notion is called stoikheion, and refers in particular to the four elements, fire, air, water, earth, we discussed at the beginning. The word stoikheion derives from the verb steikhein, “to walk, to walk in a row”, hence also stoikhos, “row of soldiers”, stikhos, “row of soldiers, or of trees…, line of writing”. The Greek word stoikheion thus evokes elements that are aligned, numbered, arranged in order, even finally designating a letter as part of an alphabet just as chemical elements will be, but a long time later, each identified by its atomic number and its symbol in one or two letters, and arranged in order, classified in the columns and rows of the Periodic Table. We think also of Euclid’s Elements (in Greek, Stoikheia), written around 300 BC, which is an intellectual construction used for mathematics then as the Periodic Table is today for chemistry. In fact, element comes, through Old French, from the Latin elementum (often in the plural, elementa), quite different from the Greek, but translating stoikheion in all its uses, including designation of either the four elements of antiquity, or the letters of an alphabet. This last point has led linguists to advance two astonishing hypotheses which, even if they are not finally retained, deserve to be mentioned1: – elementum was seen as deriving from L M N, the first three letters of the second half of the alphabet, often presented in two parts; 1.  Ernout, Alfred et Meillet, Antoine, with additions by André, Jacques, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine -histoire des mots-, Editions Klincksieck, Paris, 1985 (1st edition 1932), at elementum. 245

The epilogue to end all epilogues

– perhaps even more unexpectedly, elementum was thought to come from a hypothetical *elepantum, “letter engraved on ivory”, from Latin elephantus, itself from Greek elephas, “elephant, ivory”! An animal story that we never imagined! But it is understandable, however, if we note and know that some very old ivory alphabet tablets were found in archaeological sites. An example is shown in the illustration below.

➜ The

so-called Marsiliana Tablet is made of ivory. It was found in an Etruscan graveyard near the village of Marsiliana d’Albegna, in the very south of Tuscany, Italy. It shows an alphabet, written from right to left, dated 700 BC.

To this day, the etymology of elementum remains an enigma.

z Elements within elements As can be seen from most words, the meaning of Latin elementum has evolved from a concrete to an abstract concept, designating any constituent part of a whole, as an overarching generality. This is also the case for element in English. Therefore, proteins can be described as elements of the living world, for example. They are polymers made up themselves of elements, the 20 amino acids, a sort of molecular alphabet, built from only 5 chemical elements: C, N, O, H and S. Similarly, DNA molecules are the essential elements of chromosomes. They are mainly composed of polymers made up of elements, the 4 nucleotides, themselves built from only 5 chemical elements: C, N,

246

The amazing history of element names

O, H... and P this time. We realize here that Mother Nature is satisfied with only 6 chemical elements, represented by the 6 letters: C, N, O, H, P and S, in order to build all the nucleic acids, thus the genetic codes, and the main part of proteins of the living world. An amazing edifice!

z Indeed, it is a truly amazing history... Let’s just wonder for a moment how, throughout this adventure of the elements, we saw that: – the Ancients associated iron and Mars, but they were unaware that this planet was red... precisely because of iron; – an alchemist went in search of gold and discovered... phosphorus; – Lavoisier demonstrated that air and water broke down into three chemical elements; – Mendeleev predicted the existence of unknown chemical elements, which we actually found later; – we didn’t expect to find noble gases hidden in the atmosphere and rare earths hidden in minerals; – styrene was first invented by a tree, before becoming ‘petrochemical’; and so many other extraordinary tales of the ilk... Buffon was right: “we must not see anything impossible, expect everything, and suppose that everything that can be, is”.

z The elements, their names and their discoverers Throughout the book, the names of the elements reveal the inspirations of research scientists forming the long, human chain that has advanced chemistry and its language throughout the world. Thanks to shared cultural references and the use of Greek and Latin roots, the language of chemistry has evolved to become a kind of Esperanto that promotes and enhances exchanges among scientists all around the world.

247

Chapter 9 – Table of content

Table of content Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IV

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VI

To make the reading easier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IX

Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

XI

1  Fire, air, water, earth… and the 5th element? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we see how Lavoisier ushered in modern chemistry

1

1. Earth, a precious diamond mine! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4

carbon (C), coal, diamond, graphite, graphene and fullerenes

2. Air and water, elements of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8

hydrogen (H), oxygen (O) and nitrogen (N)

3. A quest that leads to fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

phosphorus (P) and phosgene

4. The 5th element... towards quintessence! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

ether, ethyl alcohol, ethane, methane, propane... and alkanes

2  A chance for artists and craftsmen… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we recall that the Ancients knew 7 metals...

21

1. A metal for eternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24

gold (Au)

2. Metal weddings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

mercury (Hg) and cinnabar, silver (Ag), platinum (Pt)

3. Emblematic metals and alloys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), brass and bronze

4. The metal of war . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

iron (Fe), siderite, pyrite, hematite and magnetite

5. Teasing game between metals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

lead (Pb), molybdenum (Mo) and tin (Sn), galena, molybdenite and cassiterite

6. Tales around brimstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sulphur (S), antimony (Sb), stibine and alcohol

248

44

The amazing history of element names

3  Gods, myths and legends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we plunge in mythology and astronomy 1. About gods and planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49 52

uranium (U), neptunium (Np), plutonium (Pu), tellurium (Te), selenium (Se), cerium (Ce), palladium (Pd) and bismuth (Bi)

2. Heaven or hell? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

titanium (Ti), zirconium (Zr), tantalum (Ta), niobium (Nb), iridium (Ir) and columbite

3. Prometheus and hidden earths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

cerium (Ce), lanthanum (La), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), gadolinium (Gd), promethium (Pm) and technetium (Tc)

4. Helen of Troy and sugars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

inulin and insulin

5. Diabolical dwarves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

68

nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co) and arsenic (As)

6. Fear of the werewolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

72

tungsten (W), wolframite and scheelite

7. Vanadis and Thor, day and night

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

vanadium (V), thorium (Th), chromium (Cr) and rhodium (Rh)

8. The oracles of Amun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

ammonia, ammonium, amine and amide

4  Travels with words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where we find city, country and even continent names 1. A good harvest in Scandinavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85 88

yttrium (Y), ytterbium (Yb), terbium (Tb), erbium (Er), scandium (Sc), thulium (Tm), dysprosium (Dy), lutetium (Lu) and hafnium (Hf )

2. France and Germany, face to face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

92

gallium (Ga), germanium (Ge), ruthenium (Ru) and francium (Fr)

3. In Scotland, not so far from Loch Ness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

96

barium (Ba), strontium (Sr), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), beryllium (Be), radium (Ra) and alkaline earth metals

4. On the shores of the Aegean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), magnetite, magnesite, magnesia, rhenium (Re) and… rosin

5. Travels across Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 carrageenan and agar-agar

5  Tastes, colours and smells in names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Where we perceive the word in all its senses 1. Not to overindulge in sugar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 dextrose, levulose, glucose and fructose

2. When it’s scorched… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 ozone and osmium (Os)

249

Table of content 3. An unnecessary colour? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 indium (In), rubidium (Rb), caesium (Cs) and thallium (Tl)

4. A tale with a salty lick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), iodine (I) and astatine (At)

6  Explorers of the elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Where we see how they named their discoveries Humphry Davy 1. The salts of the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 nitre, nitric acid, nitrates, borax, boron (B) and borates

2. Minerals in plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 zeolite, soda, potash, lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K) and alkali metals

3. The mantle of the Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 quartz, flint, silica, silicon (Si), silicone, alum, alumina and aluminium (Al)

Emil Fischer 4. The sugars of life

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

144

xylose, lyxose, arabinose and ribose

5. The alphabet of the living kingdom

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

148

urea, purine, adenine, guanine, pyrimidine, cytosine, thymine and uracil

6. Eclectic names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 valine, valeric acid and pivalic acid

William Ramsay 7. Strange gases hidden in the air... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe) and radon (Rn)

Glenn Seaborg 8. When it comes to physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 actinium (Ac) and the 14 other actinides, rutherfordium (Rf ) and other transactinides

7  In the intimacy of plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Where botany is a source of inspiration 1. Wheat in the oven and in the mill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 starch and amylase

2. The best and the worst of a seed

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

172

ricinolein, ricin and crotonic acid

3. A comforting tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 cinchonine, quinine, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine

4. And here comes Jupiter again, with nuts! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 juglone and lawsone

5. Lumber and firewood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 lignin, lignite, cellulose, xylene and xylose

250

The amazing history of element names 6. The tree that invented polystyrene

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

188

styrene and benzene

7. The aromas of plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 nepetalactone, turpentine, pinene, isoprene and other terpenes… and terephthalic acid .

8  Animal stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Where zoology meets chemistry 1. Foxes are so foxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 fuchsine

2. Ruminant butters and acids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 butyric acid, butane, caproic, caprylic, capric acids and caprolactapm...

3. A name that fits the bill

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

208

keratin and kerosene

4. A discovery in the liver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 heparin

9  What everyday product names tell us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Where we discover the history of common, household names 1. The secret of porcelain/china . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 kaolin and porcelain

2. A product that makes things clean… and white . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 bleach

3. A story with twists, turns and bounces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 natural rubber and ebonite

4. A brilliant inventor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 bakelite, phenol, formaldehyde, formalin, formic acid, melamine and formica

5. Double-purpose glass: for safety and aesthetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 plexiglas, altuglas, perspex, lucite, acrolein and acrylic acid

6. From the still to the refinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 white spirit, naphtha, naphthalene, bitumen, concrete, asphalt and tar

The epilogue to end all epilogues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

245

Table of contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

252

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

254

251

Reference sources The general reference sources used for this book are:

z Etymological dictionaries Bloch Oscar and von Wartburg Walther, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, PUF, 2002 (reprint. 5th edition, 1932). TLF, le Trésor de la Langue Française, CNRS, 1971-1994, TLF on-line version http://atilf.atilf.fr/ Corominas Joan, Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, Gredos, Madrid, 2006 (1st edition 1961). Simpson John and Weiner Edmund (Ed.), The Oxford English Dictionary, 20 vol., 2nd ed., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. Kluge Friedrich, Seebold Elmar, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, de Gruyter, Berlin, 1989. The Larousse and Robert French language dictionaries

z Works appertaining to chemistry and to the Periodic Table Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, 3rd ed. revised 1935 (1st 1933), Journal of Chemical Education, Easton, Pa, USA, 371 p. Scerri Eric, Le tableau périodique, Son histoire et sa signification, EDP Sciences, Paris, 2011, 349 p. (1st éd. The periodic Table, its story and its significance, Oxford, 2006). de Menten Pierre, Dictionnaire de chimie, Une approche étymologique et historique, De Boeck, Bruxelles, 2013, 395 p. + references in pdf.

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z Internet sites IUPAC van der Krogt Peter, Elementymology & Elements Multidict, http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/ (latest update: June 13, 2016).

z Works appertaining to antiquity Pline (the Elder), Histoire naturelle, édition bilingue Les belles lettres, Paris, 37 volumes. Grimal Pierre, Dictionnaire de la mythologie grecque et romaine, PUF, Paris, 1st ed. 1951, 14th éd. 1999, 574 p.

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Chapter 9 – Index

Index A acetic 110, 199 acetone 199 acid 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 44, 110, 111, 124, 132, 133, 136, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 166, 172, 174, 175, 181, 189, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 204, 205, 225, 232, 233, 234, 236, 237 acrolein 236, 237 acrylic 236, 237 actinide 78, 160 actinium 160 adenine 146, 148, 149 agar-agar 105, 107 alanine 155 alcohol 16, 17, 44, 47, 166, 191, 233, 234 alkaline 23, 96, 98, 108, 137, 138, 139 alkaline earth 23, 96, 98 alkaloid 127, 166, 167 alkane 17, 199, 234 altuglas 236, 237, 238, 239 alum 140, 142 alumina 140, 142 alumin(i)um 94, 130, 140, 142 amalgam 30, 82 americium 87, 160, 161 amide 80, 82 amine 80, 82 ammonia 9, 51, 80, 81, 82, 139 ammonium 80, 81, 82, 139

amylase 168, 170 antimony 44, 46, 53, 72 arabinose 144, 145 arginine 155 argon 30, 61, 131, 156, 157, 158 arsenic 19, 26, 53, 68, 70, 95 asparagine 155 asphalt (cf. tar) 240, 241, 242, 243 astatine 124, 126, 127

B bakelite 232, 233, 235, 236 barium 13, 96, 98, 99, 130 baryte 97 base 69, 91, 110, 164 benzene 188, 189, 234 benzoic 189 benzoin 188, 189 berkelium 55, 160, 161 beryllium 96, 98 bismuth 46, 52, 53, 126, 163 bitumen 240, 241, 242 bleach 218, 224, 225, 226, 227 blende 42 bohrium 162, 163 boron 130, 132, 133, 141, 162 brass VII, 32, 33, 34 bromine 117, 118, 124, 126, 127 bronze 22, 32, 33, 35, 86 butane 16, 18, 204, 205, 206, 207 butyric 204, 205

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The amazing history of element names

C

D

cadmium 32, 35, 86, 120 caesium 96, 120, 122, 123, 138, 139 calamine 33, 35 calcium 13, 74, 96, 98, 130 californium 160, 161 capric 204, 205 caproic 204, 205 caprolactam 204, 205 caprylic 204, 205 carbon VI, X, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 15, 133, 141, 143, 144, 152, 166, 182, 192, 205, 233, 234 carrageenan 105, 106, 107 cassiterite 40, 41 castor oil 166, 172, 198 cellulose 184, 185, 218 cerium 52, 54, 56, 60, 61, 88, 130 cetane 199 chalcopyrite 32 china 217, 218, 220, 221, 223 chlorine VI, 15, 117, 124, 126, 127, 130 Chlorophyll 127 chloroquine 176, 178 chromium 55, 68, 76 cinchonine 176, 178 cinnabar 28, 31, 45 coal 4, 5, 134, 182, 185, 242 cobalt 53, 68, 69, 70, 120, 140 cocaine 167 columbite 56, 58 concrete 17, 202, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245 copernicium 162, 163 copper VI, 22, 23, 32, 33, 34, 41, 42, 50, 52, 68, 69, 70, 86, 120 crotonic 172, 174 curium 160, 161, 163 cysteine 155 cytosine 148, 149, 150

darmstadtium 162, 163 dextrose 112, 113, 115 diamond 1, 3, 4, 7 didymium 61, 62 dubnium 162 dysprosium 60, 88, 90

E ebonite 228, 230, 231, 236 einsteinium 160, 161 element 245 enzyme 170, 199 erbium 89 ester 166 ethane 16, 17, 18, 166 ether 3, 16, 17, 19, 20, 50, 151, 166 ethyl 16, 17, 150, 166 eucalyptol 180 europium 60, 62, 87, 88, 94, 161

F fermium 160, 161 flerovium 162, 163 flint 140, 141, 142 fluorescein 127 fluorine VI, 124, 125, 126, 127 fluorite 125 formaldehyde 232, 233, 234, 235 formalin 232, 233, 234 formic 198, 232, 233, 234 francium 87, 92, 94, 96, 102, 138, 139 fructose 64, 112, 114, 115, 146 fuchsine 94, 200, 201, 203 fullerene 4, 6, 7

255

Index

G gadolinium 60, 62, 88, 161 galactose 84, 106, 199 galena 40, 41, 42, 45, 46 gallium 68, 92, 93, 94, 95, 104, 120, 161 gas 5, 16, 19, 50, 61, 62, 81, 124, 131, 156, 157, 158, 159, 234 geraniol 180 germanium 55, 68, 92, 94, 95, 104, 120 glucose 98, 111, 112, 113, 115, 146, 199 glutamic 155 glutamine 155 gluten 155 glycine 155 gold 13, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 52, 70, 72, 80, 156, 218, 223, 247 graphene 4, 6, 7 graphite 4, 5, 6, 7, 42, 136, 229 guanine 148, 149 gum 80, 81, 83, 145, 147, 189, 229 gum ammoniac 80, 81, 83, 229 gum arabic 80, 145, 147, 229

H hafnium 55, 88, 90 halogen 9, 37, 118, 124, 126, 127, 128 hassium 162 helium VI, 51, 156, 157, 158 hematite 36, 38 heparin 199, 212, 213, 215 histidine 155 holmium 60, 88, 90 hydrocarbon 8, 192, 210

hydrogen VII, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 130, 138, 139 hydroxychloroquine 176, 178

I indigo 120, 121, 122, 123 indium 55, 120, 121, 122, 123 insulin 64, 66 inulin 64, 65, 66, 166 iodine VI, 124, 126, 127, 128, 166 iridium 55, 56, 58 iron VI, 22, 23, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 45, 48, 52, 68, 72, 77, 100, 101, 103, 120, 124, 127, 247 isoleucine 155 isoprene 192, 193

J jasmone 180 juglone 167, 180, 181, 182

K kaolin 218, 220, 221, 223 keratin 199, 208, 209, 210 kerosene 208, 210, 240 krypton 61, 131, 156, 157, 158

L lactose 199 lanthanide 60, 83, 88, 160 lanthanum 55, 60, 61, 83, 88, 131 lawrencium 160, 162 lawsone 180, 181, 182 lead VII, 1, 5, 6, 12, 13, 22, 23, 30, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 52, 55,

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The amazing history of element names

105, 136, 140, 152, 163, 181, 189, 209, 229, 234 leucine 155 levulose 112, 114, 115 lignin 167, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187 lignite 182, 183, 184, 185 lime 19, 96, 97, 98 limestone 96, 97 lithium 96, 136, 137, 138, 139 livermorium 162, 163 lucite 236, 239 lutetium 60, 88, 91 lysine 155 lyxose 131, 144, 145, 146, 152

M magnesia 19, 96, 97, 100, 102, 103 magnesite 100, 102, 103 magnesium 96, 98, 100, 102, 103, 124, 130 magnetite 36, 100, 101, 103 manganese 53, 55, 68, 72, 100, 102, 103, 104 meitnerium 162 melamine 232, 235 mendelevium 160, 162, 163 mercaptan 47 mercury 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 47, 51, 53, 56, 82 metal 23 methane 16, 17, 166, 234 methionine 155 methyl 17, 150, 166, 236 molybdenite 40, 42 molybdenum 40, 41, 42, 53, 63 morphine 167 moscovium 162, 163

N naphtalene 240, 241 naphtha 240, 241 natron 132, 133, 134, 135, 138 neodymium 60, 62, 88 neon 131, 156, 157, 158, 159 nepetalactone 192 neptunium 52, 54, 83, 160, 161 nickel 36, 42, 53, 68, 69, 70, 75, 120, 136, 140 nicotine 167 nihonium 162, 163 niobium 56, 58 nitre 132, 133, 134, 135 nitric 8, 9, 132, 133, 194 nitrogen 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 81, 134, 139, 150, 200 nobelium 160, 162

O oganesson X, 162, 163 orichalcum 33, 34 orpiment 26, 70 osmium 55, 116, 118, 119 oxygen VI, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 38, 44, 45, 116, 118, 130, 132, 141, 149, 166, 192, 224 ozone 116, 117, 118, 119

P palladium 52, 54, 120 perspex 236, 239 phenol 167, 232, 233, 234 phenylalanine 155 phosgene 12, 15 phosphorus VI, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 218, 247

257

Index

pinene 154, 180, 192, 193, 194 pivalic 152, 154 platinum 28, 31, 53, 93, 118 plexiglas VII, 236, 237, 238, 239 plumbago 5, 42 plutonium 52, 54, 83, 131, 160, 161 polonium 55, 86, 87, 102, 160 polymer II, 64, 106, 166, 171, 185, 193, 218, 219, 232, 236, 246 porcelain 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223 potash 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 166 potassium 96, 98, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 166, 200 praseodymium 60, 62, 88 proline 155 promethium 60, 63 propane X, 16, 17 propyl 17 protactinium 160 protein 66, 148, 155, 170, 173, 208 purine 131, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152 pyridine 150 pyrimidine 148, 149, 150, 151 pyrite 36, 45

Q quartz 3, 23, 140, 141 quinine 110, 166, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181

R radium 96, 159, 160 radon 156, 158, 159 rhenium 86, 100, 102, 104 rhodium 55, 76, 120

ribose 131, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 152 ricin 172, 173 ricinolein 172 roentgenium 163 rosin 100, 103, 193 rubber 122, 193, 218, 228, 229, 230, 231 rubidium 96, 120, 122, 123, 138, 139 ruthenium 92, 93, 120 rutherfordium 160, 162

S saccharide 111 salt VI, 10, 37, 47, 62, 110, 124, 126, 132, 133, 134, 138, 226, 227, 240 saltpetre 134, 135 samarium 60, 61, 62, 88 scandium 60, 86, 88, 90, 96, 104 scheelite 72, 75 seaborgium 162 selenium VI, 52, 55, 83, 130 serine 155 siderite 36 silica 140, 141, 142 silicon VI, 40, 94, 95, 130, 140, 141, 142, 143 silicone 140, 142, 143 silver VI, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, 31, 41, 52, 55, 120, 155 soda 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 166 sodium VI, 96, 98, 110, 124, 125, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 156, 166, 227 sphalerite 42 starch VII, 111, 166, 168, 169, 170, 215

258

stibine 44, 46 strontianite 97 strontium 96, 98, 130 styrax 188, 189, 190, 191 styrene 190 sugar 111 sulphide 9, 13, 26, 28, 41, 42, 45 sulphur VI, 19, 23, 44, 45, 47, 70, 134, 155, 228, 229, 230

T tantalum 55, 56, 57, 58 tar 234, 240, 241, 242 technetium 60, 63, 83, 102, 104 tellurium 52, 54, 55, 56, 130 tennessine 162, 163 terbium 60, 88, 89, 108 terephthalic 192, 194, 195 terpene 192, 193, 195 terpenoid 192 thallium 55, 120, 122 theobromine 127, 166 thioalcohol 47 thiol 47 thorium 55, 76, 78, 79, 83, 130, 160 threonine 155 thulium 60, 86, 88, 90 thymine 148, 149, 150 thymol 180 tin 22, 32, 34, 40, 41, 46, 48, 52, 72, 120, 200 titanium 55, 56, 58, 90, 130 transactinides 160, 162 tungsten 23, 53, 72, 74, 75, 92, 198 turpentine 192, 193, 194, 195 tyrosine 155

U uracil 148, 150 uranium VI, VII, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 63, 83, 130, 156, 157, 160, 163 urea 77, 78, 81, 148, 150, 151 urethane 151

V valeric 152, 153, 154, 199 valine 152, 155 Vanadinite 76 vanadium 61, 76, 77, 78, 79, 130

W white-spirit 240 wolframite 72, 75

X xanthate 44 xenon 131, 156, 157, 158 xylene 184, 187 xylose 144, 146, 149, 184, 187

Y ytterbium 60, 88, 89, 91 yttrium 60, 88, 89, 90, 96

Z zeolite 136, 137 zinc 32, 33, 35, 42, 53, 68, 120 zirconium 55, 56, 90

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